CD. Passion of the Christ: Songs Inspired by the Passion of the Christ is a selection of tunes handpicked by Mel Gibson who s listed as the album s producer. According to his website he chose these songs by contemporary artists because they exemplify in some way the depth of emotion in the film and in some aesthetic way are a companion to the journey. Along with recognizable rock and country songs by Bob Dylan ( It s Not Dark Yet ) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds ( Darker With the Day ) Elvis Presley ( Where No One Stands Alone ) Leonard Cohen ( By the River Dark ) Leon Russell ( Stranger in a Strange Land ) the Blind Boys of Alabama ( Precious Lord ) and others there are tracks specifically recorded for this set like former Cranberry Dolores O Riordan s plaintive rendering of Ave Maria Please Carry Me Home recorded by Jessi Colter and Shooter (her son with Waylon Jennings) and Holly Williams singing her grandfather Hank s How Can You Refuse Him Now. Does it work? Oh yeah. Most of the tunes created for this recording are amazing; they add immeasurably and in different ways to Gibson s atmospheric aural road. The Holly Williams tune accompanied only by outside sounds and a lone barely audible piano open the record and is so arresting you might forget to breathe until it s over. Colter and Shooter s song is a modern country gospel number filled with drama and passion and O Riordan s reverential treatment of a traditional song is a class act. The only thing that doesn t work is Why Me the Kris Kristofferson tune done so definitively by Johnny Cash. It s not the singer s fault though; this song belongs to the Man in Black alone. Why Gibson didn t just license it -- or at least the songwriter s original which is also better than this one -- is a mystery. As for the rest of the cuts here both well-known and obscure Gibson s sequencing is like that of a seasoned well-versed disc jockey on late-night radio carrying his listeners along for the ride into the dark night that ends at dawn. Very fine. ~ Thom Jurek Rovi