Another year, another compilation. Many seem to regard Hillsong Church's musical endeavours as nothing more than easy cash generating schemes. Especially after what happened with Mike Guglielmucci and his terminal "illness", the after-effect of which was the immediate removal of the song "Healer" from This Is Our God. While the whole driving worship anthem thing has gotten a bit tedious, there is no doubt that this collection represents the crème-de-la-creme of Hillsong's music for the past 5 or so years. Joel Houston and crew have created masterpieces such as "Mighty to Save", "The Stand" and "Salvation is here" over the years, and the compilation is more or less an accurate reflection of the church's musical quality, with a few questionable omissions.
Track Listing:
- Salvation Is Here
- The Freedom We Know
- From The Inside Out
- To the Ends Of The Earth
- Lord Of All
- Let Creation Sing
- Hallelujah
- Let Us Adore
- Came To My Rescue
- Take It All
- The Stand
- For All You've Done
- For Who You Are
- At The cross
- None But Jesus
- God He Reigns
- Mighty To Save
You can't really look at a compilation album as being an "album" per se, as the tracks weren't created with the idea of flowing together. Nevertheless, the audio editing duo of Tim Whincop and Steve Mcpherson do a decent job of melding the songs together into a sonically pleasing album. The blood starts pumping with the adrenaline rush of "Salvation is here" and "The Freedom We Know" at the start, then passionate renditions of favourites such as "From The Inside Out" and "To The Ends Of The Earth". One factor to note is that this album comprises "the very best live worship" (emphasis on the live). The band is able to draw on the raw power of a live performance while maintaining the tightness and musical cohesion most present on studio albums. Because it is a worship album, all the tracks are very notable for lifting the atmosphere to a very high place. This is evident on tracks like "From The Inside Out" and "Mighty To Save", especially on the penultimate choruses. The passion of the band and singers is evident. Another potent factor in favour of this compilation is the fact that "fast" songs are dispersed throughout the whole album, and not lumped together at the start, as is the case with many worship albums. Rather, they are placed where they are extremely effective, such as in the middle where a lull in passion might take place. "Take It All" and "For All You've Done" make sure that the worshippers keep at it. Overall, the track numbering and placing is efficient and quite smart, because these tracks were not created with the intention of being played sequentially.
The band remains tight throughout all the tracks on the album, exuding a sense of confidence without being overbearing. This is especially important on a worship record, as the focus is not on the performance but rather the atmosphere and how conducive it is to worshipping God. Guitar solos are kept to a minimum but the guitarists are masters at the craft of creating a worshipful atmosphere. Some cynics may argue that there is not much more to worship guitar than strumming repetitive chord progressions, but there is so much more than that. True, most of the chord progressions are rather simplistic, but therein lies the beauty of worship music. The guitarists can worship freely because they have the knowledge that the songs are ingrained in their hands and heads. As a result, they follow the worship leaders' signalling effectively and are able to bring the intensity down to the most minimalistic level, while also knowing when to up the ante and worship God with a passion. The bassist and drummer fill out the low end of the sound level admirably, and the drummer deserves special mention for being efficient but not boring in his choice of fills. He does not draw attention to himself, but complements the band and the vocalists well without overpowering them volume-wise, as drummers are capable of doing. The whole band is one of the best in the worship industry today, as is evidenced on "Mighty To Save", one of the classic worship songs of the past few years.
Lyrically, worship is not a very wide genre by nature. However, there is a relatively decent range of song topics here, ranging from pleas for spiritual change ("From The Inside Out"), celebration of emotional and spiritual freedom ("Salvation Is Here", "The Freedom We Know") adoration of God's creation ("Let Creation Sing") and gratefulness for salvation ("For All You've Done", "Came To My Rescue", etc.) Nothing beyond your usual worship fare, but it's effective for drawing people into the presence of God.
There's not much wrong with this disc. Most of the tracks are tracks that deserve their place in a "best of" Hillsong worship collection. However, it is questionable as to why tracks such as "The Freedom We Know" and "Came To My Rescue" were included, as opposed to "Hosanna", "Saviour King" and others. Many people believe "Hosanna" to be one of the finest tracks in years, but then again beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Joel Houston is proving to be one of the best worship leaders, on par even with Darlene Zschech. It will not surprise me to see Joel become one of the world's leading consultants on worship music, and I look forward to the future of Hillsong music. My recommendation? Buy it if you are just starting to get into Hillsong, because this is most of the best work of the last 5 years. If you have some of their CDs, though, you'd be better off buying your preferred tracks on iTunes. Of course, you could also just buy the disc if you fancy.
Rating:
4/5
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