Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

The Dutch Christian music scene is similar to us here in Britain where the market is flooded with many American releases but they also have their own local scene. In recent years a gospel lite style of worship has emerged from the USA which mixes some elements of gospel with praise and worship sounds so you get choir vocals, a certain understated funkiness and sounds that aim to appeal to both black and white churches. It began with Ron Kenoly but these days people like Israel Houghton and Martha Munizzi are the masters of the genre. Gilbert Thera and NuSound fit snugly into this model and nine of the 15 tracks are covers of songs made popular by those artists and others whilst only a handful are originals. And whilst this is nicely recorded, the lack of original material works against Thera. Why get this when you can snap up an Israel Houghton album? And haven't we heard enough versions of "Lord I Lift Your Name On High", "Light Of The World" or "Friend Of God"? This is a tight worship team who have some serious talent and it was probably an exciting night when this was recorded but as a listening experience from this distance, I feel like I've heard it all before. Gilbert Thera might be better to employ his talents writing and creating fresh worship rather than serving up copies of other people's work, however well recorded.

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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