Reviewed by David Faulkner

How appearances deceive, how much more so, past experiences. When this two CD set arrived from Cross Rhythms Towers, I looked at the packaging and booklet - just a tracklisting, lyrics with composer credits, no mention of the recording artists. Oh no, it's another collection of anonymous cover versions of popular worship songs, maybe demo quality with barely passable quality for a local church worship group to get the hang of a new song. How wrong I was. What you don't know until you pop it in your CD player or your iTunes is that this is packed with original artist recordings from the last 10 to 15 years. (Surely Kingsway should finally dump their unpopular policy of not listing artists on compilation albums). So all present and correct and reporting for duty are Kendrick, Townend, Redman, Hughes, Delirious?, Fellingham, Oakley and several others. Pleasingly, it also includes recordings from some of the newer guard such as Chris McClarney and Aaron Keyes. Inevitably, not every song is a classic and some of the material here doesn't live up to the hype in the ads about 'substance and lyrical depth'. But with those caveats this is still hands down the best British worship compilation this reviewer has heard in years.

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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