Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Part of YFC's jubilee celebrations, this album pulls together some of the musical talent within the organisation. Bath-based Jon Birch has done an excellent job to give this a coherent feel whilst working with a variety of songwriters and singers. Occasionally patchy (the female vocal contributions are particularly weak), there are enough musical moments of genius to make this album worth checking out. I particularly liked "Lay Your Burdens Down" with its slow groove built over a telephone engaged tone! Birch's understated vocals work well and there's yet another tasteful bit of guitar from Dan Wheeler whose sterling work adds class to the whole album, particularly on the album's outstanding track, Doug Walker's "Absolutely", which is simply brilliant! Elsewhere, the jungly "Wild Hope" is great musically but let down by a particularly weak vocal. There's much moodiness and atmosphere contained in Jon Birch's "Healing Hand" and Jonny Baker's performance of "Lord You Have Searched Me". As a selection of modern worship songs in a dance idiom, this is more interesting than 90 per cent of worship albums on the market and acts as a handy audit of YFC's musical talent in 1997. Much to applaud and enjoy!

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