Reviewed by Matthew Cordle

In case you haven't previously come across Mark Tedder, he and his wife are involved in a global ministry seeking to equip worship leaders with teaching and hands-on instruction. Their MySpace page is headed up by the bold statement that they "believe that worship leaders can transform the earth", and they've been "working alongside church worship teams from Beijing to Bangkok, Reykjavik to Cairo and Madras to Lhasa". This four-track EP is a collaboration with 18 year old programmer Jordan Riley, son of Britain's renowned worship songwriter Ken Riley. The tone is joyful celebration of the freedom and forgiveness to be found in the name of Jesus, of God not only putting a new song in our hearts, but singing over us (cf. Zephaniah). I would debate the album notes' statement that these tracks "have a totally different spin on worship music" - always dangerous to use the word "different"! The only slightly unusual element is the intro to "Rain", which uses the trance technique of omitting the down beat, immediately drawing the ear into the build of the music as you try to work out where the beat is - very effective. The songs are eminently singable and I can see them being pretty easily translated for congregational worship use. . .except that my congregation would never cope with there being no downbeat in an intro!

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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