Reviewed by Stella Redburn

Elevation Worship is the worship team of Elevation Church, a mega-church of 20,000 people in Charlotte, North Carolina. The church was formed in 2006 by Pastor Steven Furtick and now has 14 locations. With resources like this to back the album, recorded live at Time Warner Arena in 2015, you might expect a high standard. This does not disappoint. The highly polished, well-produced, multi-tracked sound wraps itself around 12 heartfelt worship anthems, supported enthusiastically by the live congregation. "Call Upon The Lord" is measured and powerful with its default bass and drums and the words are truly inspirational, eg, "Rise, your shackles are no more/For Jesus Christ has broken every chain." I liked the lyrics throughout because they are not churchy, but rather are what people actually say. In the title track they sing "the atmosphere is changing now/You're the reason we came." And the atmosphere is actually electric as the song builds like a wave. My favourite here is probably "Resurrecting" - a great new hymn tune, while "O Come To The Altar" is a beautiful new take on the call to commitment. Every song, whether dance music-tinged or prayerfully meditative, contains straight down the line Gospel words. I love it.

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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