Reviewed by John Baugh

You know Newsong. Grammy nominated, Dove Award winning, big sellers in the US. Well this is them in worship mode. Recorded at the First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Georgia during their 2005 tour this is as polished and professional as you might expect but the thing is deep down you can see that their heart is really in it. It's not a bandwagon jump, it's an expression of how the band feel about God and want to worship him and lead others to do the same. The trouble is that the over polished production, with standard concert shots from cameras zooming over crowd, past band, etc, detract rather than enhance the songs. Also, at least on my copy, the lip synching was not great suggesting that an amount of post-production on the sounds had been done (a bit of a quibble I know but it does put me off). As befits a worship focus the songs are not just their own but also favourites such as "Blessed Be Your Name" and "Here I Am To Worship". One track to note is a pretty good version of Delirious?' "My Glorious". Apart from that, it's all in all quite nice, not many surprises, not all that thrilling.

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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