Reviewed by Carl Grimsditch

Considering the impressive billing of worship luminaries toted on the front sleeve - Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Brenton Brown, Delirous?, Tree63, Vicky Beeching, Yfriday, Cathy Burton and introducing Rend Collective Experiment - this compilation has a decidedly low key opening track. While Aaron Keyes' "You Never Cease To Amaze Me" is a good song in its own right it is not particularly suited to congregational worship (it's hard to sing and would be difficult to emulate in a normal church environment). The rest of this two-CD set is more fitting with some inspiring tracks, however there aren't any really catchy songs and nothing you can picture being sung everywhere for the next few years. On the first disc "Jesus Saves" by Tim Hughes and Nick Herbert, and "Surrender" by Marc James are the nearest we get and it's only on the second disc that we get a couple of stone worship classics in "Everlasting God" (Brenton Brown and Ken Riley) and "Yesterday Today And Forever" (Vicky Beeching). Too often this package comes across as a means of putting before the church going public new material that the record company/music publisher want to promote rather than reflecting the very best of contemporary worship that such a title as 'Essential Worship' would seem to suggest. So in truth, the careful purchaser would be best advised to consider other modern worship compilations before this one.

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.

Interested in reviewing music? Find out more here.