Reviewed by Anthony Longville

This is the latest release emanating from the Australian youth worship event, whose previous releases included 'Loud Worship'. This could have been called, at least for the first few tracks, 'Louder Worship'. From the start these are bombstic, energetic, driving guitar rock-soaked worship anthems, at times bordering on hard music as on the no-holds-barred "Praise Him". The opening four tracks are relentless, the vocals strong, and there's some excellent guitar work. After all that you probably need a change of pace and that is exactly what you get, appropriately enough with "Away With You" - a song about waiting in a quiet place with God. And with that the album completely changes gear, fast paced rockers replaced by slow guitar worship ballads. The contrast is striking and, more worryingly, some of the vocals on the quieter songs are below par. Another disappointment is that the band fails to resist the modern worship tendency to stretch the songs out. Seven or eight minute tracks now become common place, as a number of songs are overcooked with repetition. I continued listening to the album hoping at some point that the initial energy would return. But it never did. Maybe it would have worked better if the fast and slow songs were alternated, I don't know. Many of the quieter songs are nice enough. But it's the rocking songs which grab the attention on this tale of two musical approaches.

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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