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Jeremy Camp is all the rage. It's been a little over a year since his wildly popular debut Stay (BEC) hit the streets, and his momentum just doesn't stop. (Camp even finished second as Best Male Artist in our Readers' Choice Awards.) Carried Me, a transitional project of sorts, was actually slated to be released almost in conjunction with Stay, but the, um, staying power of the latter forced his label to push back its arrival for a while. Born out of Camp's heart for worship, Carried Me is mostly comprised of well-known and obscure worship selections, as well as four new compositions and one lifted from his label debut ("Walk By Faith").

Camp keeps things familiar here: overall, the album feels like Stay, part deux. That's mostly due to the same pop/rock arrangements, the praise-filled, Young Life-friendly lyrics, and Camp's commanding—if not a bit too Stapp-ish—baritone. His interpretation of Chris Tomlin's "Wonderful Maker," for example, is by-the-book, yet still highly singable. The electric, faster-paced take on "Enough" (another Tomlin track) is energetic and effective, while his cover of David Ruis's "You're Worthy of My Praise" is easily the loudest moment on the album, rockin' and fun enough to get many into an attitude of praise.

The original tracks either written or co-written by Camp are mostly slower, worshipful performance-based songs that don't easily lend themselves for corporate worship. Of these, the title track is the most experimental song in the set, even if the words retread the overused "Footprints" theme. Nice enough, but nothing to make you run out and not wait for Camp's real sophomore release, due later this year.

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