Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

In my dictionary a hymn is music sung in praise of God by which definition makes an instrumental hymn an oxymoron. The title track is, of course, one of the most popular hymns in the book although there are other tunes available. The Blind Boys have been heard to sing the words to the tune of "House Of The Rising Sun" which works better than you might expect but which is not the version on offer here. All 20 tunes played on this CD are the ones I would expect to hear but it is possible that you use a different hymnbook so there may be surprises for some. Given that many of the hymns are listed inaccurately as "traditional" in the (scanty) liner notes it is difficult to be certain until you hear them. "All Things Bright And Beautiful", for example, is the popular tune written by W H Monk. But what of particular renditions presented here? As it says on the back cover we get "over an hour of beautiful instrumental music featuring guitar with varied accompaniment". The guitarists include Lance Allen, Mark Baldwin, John Gerighty and Trevor Nasser although this listener found it impossible to tell them apart, presumably because they had been instructed to pick out the melody with single notes which precludes any individual style from coming over. This makes it easy to sing along if that is what you want to do but one is left thinking that the tunes could have been played on a variety of instruments. All in all 'Amazing Grace' is pleasant enough background music and you may hear this in your local Christian bookshop, if you actually notice it. This is a shame as hymns such as "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!", "Come Thou Almighty King" and "Abide With Me" do not deserve to be relegated to easy-listening background muzak.

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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