The Louvin Brothers recorded this collection of patriotic, often military-themed songs in 1962, a few years before the Vietnam War would politicize and polarize pop music in a manner unimaginable at the time, and for better or worse this set has dated in a way that most of
the Louvins' material has not. While
Charlie and
Ira Louvin are in superb voice as usual, and the production is clean and unobtrusive, capturing the harmonies and ace instrumentalists with appropriate clarity, the songs often sound overly sentimental or jingoistic, and even the often tragic lyrical turns that are the hallmark of the Louvin Brothers' work sound a bit obvious in this context. Much as this album's "The Great Atomic Power" has come to be viewed ironically with time rather than taken at face value, most of these songs (which frankly are not as good as
the Louvins' best material) are just overwritten enough to make them difficult to take seriously, and while the songs are performed with obvious sincerity and conviction, that only makes them sound a bit more clunky after the passage of a few decades. There are some lovely moments here, most notably the relatively understated "I Died for the Red, White and Blue" and the traditional-sounding "A Seaman's Girl," but for the most part,
Weapon of Prayer doesn't quite hit the target, either as entertainment or patriotism.