Reviewed by Paul S Ganney

Live worship albums are generally a bit of a mixed bag: classics (that you already have fine studio versions of), new gems and "you'll never do this in church with only an acoustic guitar" songs; stuff that captures the event wonderfully and stuff that only works if you were there. This album is mostly songs I'd not met before, which is to its credit. How many I'd want to lead in church is a different question, but I'd certainly want to give a couple of the faster ones a go. If you've been to a Vineyard event or bought one of their albums then you've a good idea what you're in for: full (pop rock) band arrangements bearing a certain resemblance to recent Stereophonics material, lots of energy (visualising the tent full of people bouncing up and down in unison is easy), very clear vocals (male on the guitar-driven ones, female on the keyboard-led ones), U2-style slapback echo guitar riffs, simple melodies, arrangements that either start up-tempo and stay there or start quiet, build to a crescendo and then drop back, the freeform bits and the quieter ones towards the end. To be honest, an album like this does exactly what it says on the cover: you already know whether or not you're going to like it before it starts. This is one of the better ones, though, hitting most of the good bits and avoiding the pitfalls of the genre. I especially liked the arrangements on "Take Heart" and "Sovereign Over Us".

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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