As a few of you may know, I write for a worship music site - allaboutworship.com. These past few weeks have marked a realisation of a vision that Wisdom Moon (the founder of AAW) had for creating a “collective” album - a showcase of worship songs written by some friends of the site. In it’s first few days of release, the album featured highly in the Noisetrade top downloads, peaking at #2. Here are a few of my thoughts on the album:

The feeling of unity and collectiveness is portrayed succinctly with Matthew Reed’s ‘Crash This Place’, with the stirring bridge of “we are one, let Your Kingdom come”, combined with a chorus that invites the Lord’s Spirit to come and “crash this place with love” - powerful gang vocals really communicate the message of this great worship song.

Writing the “complete” worship song is the ultimate challenge for any worship leader or songwriter, and in Joshua Seller’s ‘To The One (Worthy)’ we find this challenge met admirably. The arrangement is uncomplicated, replicable by most typical church bands, the melody is catchy and singable, and the lyrics are heartfelt, yet with a strong rooting in the Word. 

The middle tracks on the album see piano-based worship leaders Jared Anderson, Dave Fitzgerald and Sarah Reeves come to the fore. Many of you will already be familiar with some of these tracks, Jared’s anthemic ‘Great I Am’ is an awesome praise chorus, telling of God’s greatness and power in a powerful and great worship offering. Dave’s ‘We Are An Ark’, (featuring Bethel Church Redding’s Jenn Johnson on backing vocals) has been one of my favourite worship songs of the past year. Dave and Jenn’s voices combine superbly in this poignant track, telling of the richness of God’s plan and purpose for us as Christians. If you are familiar with the practice of “soaking”, this is a great track to do this to. I have encountered few better songwriters than Sarah Reeves for stirring up images of the Holy Spirit moving in power, and ‘Mighty Wave’ is a great example of this. If you want an entire album of this amazing brand of worship, I encourage you to check out her Broken Things album - you will not be disappointed.

Moving further through the album we find acoustic duo Jenny & Tyler’s interpretation of Psalm 46. If you are a fan of tight harmonies set against subtle acoustic backing, this track’s for you. There is a reassurance in this track - the message given is that we can rest sure and confident in the greatness of His love, He is with us and will not leave us. Thanks for bringing this message in such a great track guys.

The power and depth of Andrew Ehrenzeller’s vocal in the closeout track ‘Nocturne for a Thief’ is simply stunning. The combination of this powerful vocal over a strong arrangement of off-beat drums, pounding bass, melodic piano, searing guitar and some beautifully layered backing vocals sees this album out strongly. (By the way, if you think the vocal at the start of the track is good, wait until you get to the bridge...)

For the sake of keeping this review readable I’ve touched on over half the tracks on this album - but there’s a whole load more - offerings from Will Retherford (whose opening track features Lisa Gungor), Darrell Evans, and David Walker complete the line up on this great collection. Did I mention that this album is FREE? No excuses, get yours today at http://www.noisetrade.com/allaboutworship