Reviewed by Peter John Willoughby

So why have their label re-titled and re-released the debut album by Belfast's Bluetree? According to Jonathon Brown at Kingsway, the reasons for this are, "Bluetree's debut wasn't a hit in the US; it was an absolute sensation. It held the top spot of the US Christian Retail chart for four consecutive weeks and has helped the band become the biggest selling new artist of the year. Over there the album's been released with a different name and design. While we went for the original title 'Greater Things', it was the team in the US that made the smart move and renamed it 'God Of This City'." It all began back in 2006, whilst on a mission trip to Thailand. One night the band was leading worship in the midst of lap-dancers, prostitutes and sex-tourists. This situation led them to question how you could worship God in such a hedonistic atmosphere and led to them writing the title song. Since then it has been used as the anthem for the 2008 Passion World Tour and Chris Tomlin recorded his own version of it. Also worth mentioning is the atmospheric clutter of everyday background noise in 'Life's Noise' (based on 1 Kings 19). The only flaw that I can see is that there is only one track where they truly let their hair down and rock out in 'God's Plan'. I can only hope that a few more up-tempo rock songs make it onto the next album.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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