Reviewed by Chris Rolinson

In the field of praise and worship one generally comes across three types of recording. Firstly, the "showcase" recording; the tape that presents material in studio arrangements.  Secondly, the live or pseudo-live recording; for example, Hosanna! tapes fall into this category. Finally, there is a relatively old idea from the mainstream scene which has taken more time than it should to cross of into the worship market and become the "tool for worship" tape! It's exemplified perfectly in this series of (so far) three tapes from Maranatha! Music is California. 'Worship Time' is a studio recorded concept of worship song medleys, each lasting about 15 minutes with four medleys to each cassette. The music flows in the familiar medley style, moving gently from song to song with no breaks. "So what?", I hear you cry. Well, here's the really useful bit - the voices are recorded on the right stereo channel and the instrumental backing on the left channel! The main advantage of this is that the tapes can be used for house groups or church meeting, family or personal devotions, whenever live musicians or worship leaders cannot be present. The vocal backing can even be brought up slightly by judicious use of the balance control on your stereo if folk need more encouragement to join in! The main disadvan­tage of this kind of resource is simply that it is a little "sterile" and becomes too predictable: once you've used it, it's difficult to use a second or third time. Having said that, you have musicians of the calibre of Smitty Price and Hadley Hockensmith leading (even if the backing can be a little too much like super­market muzak) so it's not to be sniffed at!  Don't buy this album if you want an album to listen to : do get it if you really need the resource and can put up with some of the rather American favourites. Full marks to Maranatha! for providing the opportunity

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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