Reviewed by Tom Lennie

You may already know that Ireland's Focusfest is "an annual gathering of over 3,500 women which has grown from a residential house party to a major national event." Led invariably by the unique lead vocals of Geraldine Latty, this three-CD box set features 50 highlight worship songs from previous years' live events. Content-wise, it's a "who's who" of the contemporary British worship scene - with virtually every track being a favourite over the past dozen years or so in churches up and down the country. Many are in the joyful, upbeat, celebratory category, which seems to be Geraldine's forte, and feature at least two songs each written by Redman, Marks, Kendrick, Townend, Sadler, etc. A few are traditional hymns, while only two or three come care of Ms Latty herself. Thankfully, these include the beautiful and popular "Lord I Come", as well as, uniquely in this set, a short spontaneous piece. To be honest, I'm not sure that there's any song on here that I hadn't heard before - a bit of unfamiliarity would have been welcome. The other issue for me is the pitch of Geraldine's voice - she has a tremendous vocal gifting and an obvious heart for worship, but her high-toned decibels do get to you after a while (she almost takes off on tracks like "How God It Is" and the six-minute plus "There Is A Day"!). There's certainly no way you'd want to play all 50 tracks in succession - you'd need around four hours on your hands at any rate! But extended time-play is a bonus, and there are certainly some great tracks here and many precious and genuinely worshipful moments. So, if you fancy a mammoth worship-feast, you won't go far wrong with this.

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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