Here’s my review of Icon For Hire’s ‘Scripted’ – originally appeared at http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Icon_For_Hire/Scripted/117100/
Icon For Hire are a four piece punk combo from the Midwest whose debut album is already receiving much critical acclaim. With a female lead singer, the obvious acts they could be compared to would be Paramore, Evanescence and Avril Lavigne, but the electronic influence evident in some of their tracks is a definite nod to the likes of Linkin Park and others in the Nu-Metal mould.
What is most notable, and most commendable, about this album is the sheer force with which singer Ariel delivers her vocal. This is reflected in the guitar lines and it all combines to form a sound which packs more of a punch than pretty much anything else on the scene.
The only slight weak point is “Only A Memory” which just doesn’t seem to flow like the rest of the album, but really this is nitpicking in the extreme.
Lyrically there is a real honesty and originality here despite their punk-caricature image. Like so many bands, they straddle that fine line of credibility between an honest, edgy statement and an embarrassing copycat act. Only time will tell, but I’m fairly satisfied that Icon For Hire manage the former, and they manage it better than the vast majority of secular artists, let alone those in the Christian music scene.
Here’s my review of Hillsong’s ‘God Is Able’ – orginally appeared at http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Hillsong/Hillsong_Live_God_Is_Able/116297/
Hillsong’s live series has always been a Premier League worship institution, and ‘God Is Able’ continues the tradition of stadium-filling anthems, high quality visuals and seamless production. This, the 20th album in the series, has more impact than the slightly bland ‘A Beautiful Exchange’ but doesn’t reach the heights of ‘This Is Our God’.
Melodically there are some delicious moments: the solid, building verse and soaring chorus of “Unending Love” stands out as a high point. The title track is also very strong and will doubtless become a staple in many worship leaders’ repertoire. However there is a certain amount of filler, and after the anthemic “Alive In Us” there is little of note to report.
This is a decent worship album, but in truth sometimes feels like a well oiled machine simply going through the motions. One can’t help feeling that the series is in need of a fresh injection of inspiration. For a truly great live worship album, look instead to Worship Central’s ‘Spirit Break Out’.
The annual Worship Central conferences are always great events and this year’s lineup was particularly impressive. The names on the bill included Matt Redman, Martin Smith, Alistair McGrath, J John and Vicky Beeching whose seminar I had promised to go to, although in the end I actually went to the one on the Worship Central course instead. Sorry.
The idea behind the course is really exciting. It gives worship teams the opportunity to meet together and learn about the spiritual aspects of leading worship, as well as practical things like band dynamics. I reckon there is huge benefit to be had from running something like this and I’m planning to start doing it in the new year.
Unsurprisingly there was plenty of time for worship during the event –I counted eight separate times of worship which is pretty good going for a one-and-a-half day conference. The multi-site nature of the event means that I can only report on half of it, but what I saw on Friday at Onslow Square and on Saturday at Brompton Road was really impressive. A particular highlight was Rend Collective Experiment whose genre-defying music is hard to describe and whose album does not do justice to their live show. Think U2/Mumford & Sons and you’re somewhere near…
Seminar-wise, the worship leader Q&A was a stand-out from my point of view. There were some hilarious worship leading horror stories and some helpful insights which we could all relate to. Nick Herbert’s seminar on bringing a new and fresh approach to musical worship was also great, and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he was saying.
A great couple of days then, which left us all buzzing and fired up for leading worship the following morning. The only thing I would say is that there was almost too much to take in – you would need a time machine to see more than about 25% of what was on offer. I’ll have to get the DVD.
A few weeks back, the new Worship Central album made it to number 9 in the iTunes chart and number 48 in the UK album charts: an unprecedented achievement for an out-and-out worship album.
I was there at the recording and I have to say that there was a sense there that this could be the start of a new movement in worship. A few months later, and the resulting album was in the charts and receiving national radio play. One wonders what those who heard Aled Jones play it on Radio 2 made of it all, but I’d like to think they would be pleasantly surprised. And it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some of them might have made it to HTB to see what all the fuss was about. After all, there aren’t that many opportunities to hear live music of that quality for free.
Apart from anything else this is one of the best worship albums I’ve ever heard. Obviously it’s a subjective preference but personally I think the biting guitar sounds of songs like “New Day” and the new version of “For Your Glory” are exactly where worship music needs to go. The world needs to see what Christianity is really about and call me old fashioned, but I still think that one of the best ways to let them know has to be releasing credible, high quality music that can stand up to the best of what you hear in the charts.
Welcome one and all. After an extraordinarily long break without a blog I have returned to entertain and inform you once more
Each summer I fill a substantial chunk of my precious holiday allowance sleeping in a muddy field, having cold showers and catching illnesses previously thought to have been eradicated from the human population. This year was no exception: as usual I made my annual pilgrimage to the distant shores of Shepton Mallet, but this time it was preceded by a week in Lincolnshire at HTB’s “Focus” which was a new experience for me.
Focus
I was properly impressed with the quality of the teaching and seminars at Focus but obviously I’m going to talk mainly about the worship. It was led by the team at HTB for the most part, with Matt Redman leading for two of the sessions. He played quite a few songs from his new album ”10,000 Reasons” which is brilliant and which I reviewed for Crossrhythms here. The whole thing was musically and visually very impressive and from my point of view it was great to have worship at a proper volume (ie. very, very loud).
On the subject of songs, the quality of some of the new Worship Central stuff blew me a way. Lyrically they have clearly responded to the popular criticism of more “emotional” worship songs and have delivered a more declaratory vibe, speaking of God’s wonder and majesty. Interestingly this issue is not something I’ve been very outspoken about: I’m actually all for intimacy in worship, but a hearty slice of humble pie was certainly ingested with regard to my previous comments about the state of modern worship music. ”Sing Alleluia”, “New Day” and “Once In Darkness” were particular highlights.
Musically there was an impressive degree of variation: Hip hop is hard to pull off in worship without being appallingly cheesy, but HTB seem to be able to do it well. There was even a classical session at one of the main evening meetings, which was brilliantly done.
Soul Survivor/Momentum
Back in the south-west, the worship was actually spookily similar to that of Focus, with a lot of the same songs and Matt Redman again making an appearance. Tom Field and Jamie Rodwell contributed a number of songs, as of course did Beth Croft.
For the first time I went in a “Youth Worker” capacity, helping my good buddy Becca Dean with the youth from Carpenters Church in Chorleywood. This was an extremely good deal as i got to go for free and my responsibilities consisted mainly of putting up a few tents, and then standing around wearing a serious expression and pointing at things.
Although I was exhausted by the end of this, I was still looking forward to going to Momentum the following week. Sadly though I didn’t get to sample much of it as, true to form, I caught consumption* on the second day and had to go home. I did however manage to catch a seminar on how the church can relate to “Generation Y”. This got me thinking about how worship might fit into this new cultural movement, which will be the subject of my next blog.
Maxwell out.
*The less sympathetic among my friends described it as “a cold”
I was part of an interesting debate a couple of weeks ago, while spending a relaxed, post-church Sunday evening with friends. On that particular night the subject of worship music was on the menu, and inevitably there were a number of views on the article I wrote a while back on “rubbish worship songs”.
Opinions on what I said varied hugely but the ensuing discussion, supplemented by one of two glasses of wine, yielded a more interesting question: Is today’s worship music too focussed on the individual rather than on God? I’ve certainly been reminded on many fronts recently to think of worship as a way of joining in with the activity of God, rather than as a means to satisfy a need within myself. So should we be singing about God’s love for us, sometimes in a very intimate way? Or is it more important to sing about God’s greatness and majesty?
Again, it is not a new question and it’s something that I’m sure has been discussed to some extent in every church since the new breed of worship songs began to replace traditional hymns. One of the big differences between those hymns and modern worship songs is where they place the worshipper in relation to God. To make a big generalisation, where once a hymn would put us looking up at God, declaring his power and majesty, a worship song speaking of his intimacy and friendship now fills its place. And before some people miss the point entirely: yes obviously there are many exceptions, etc etc etc…
It is however, still an interesting and unresolved question: have we lost the awe and wonder of who God is by speaking of him as we would of a friend? Maybe our corporate worship times should be focussing on praising God for who he is, and we should leave the intimate stuff for our personal quiet time.
Or would that mean losing the personal connection to God that we feel during a time of corporate worship? Would that important emotive response disappear? Are we then in danger of making God seem distant and detached? And are we risking alienating potential visitors to the church with songs full of unfamiliar language about a God who they feel unable to relate to?
Besides, these two approaches are not the only facets of the question to think about. There are plenty of scriptural references to musical worship but this one was pointed out to me recently:
“…speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 5:19-20
Here Paul appears to differentiate between different types of worship song and adds another dimension into the mix, implying that songs can also be used to encourage one another corporately, as well as being a way for individuals to connect and relate to God.
What is the most important thing then? Is it to express who God is? To describe our relationship to him? To thank him for what he has done? To praise him in unity as a congregation? In my opinion everything is the most important thing. To say that this is an either-or situation, where one aspect of God is more important than another, or even to try and categorise our worship in this way would be to limit God and reduce him to our level. The fact is that God is powerful and awesome, he provides, he strengthens us, he restores us, he is intimate, he’s majestic… we can never fully describe him in a twenty minute slot of worship on a Sunday morning… but the beauty of it is that we are still called to try.
Well it’s been an interesting week. My previous post has attracted literally… some comments, and (with a few exceptions) people seemed to largely be in agreement with me. Sarah De Jong, worship pastor at St Gabriel’s Cricklewood, even took the trouble to write a whole article in reply. This was all pleasantly surprising – when Marie asked if Musicademy could publish it I was fairly convinced that I would be the object of apoplectic rage from every songwriter this side of Nashville, loudly quoting some unsettling verses from Revelation and vowing to insert my guitar into various parts of my anatomy. Possibly sideways.
I think I may have overestimated how much anyone really cares what I think. Nevertheless I was hastened once again, away from Sky Sports and my indescribably comfortable sofa, and back to my laptop to ponder another article in Musicademy that had somehow escaped my attention.
Some time ago I read David Murrow’s book “Why Men Hate Going To Church” and it seems Marie had reproduced an interview with the author in which he summed up his main points. I think he is certainly on to something where he talks about how Church has become somewhat female-centric, what with flowers, hugging, emotional song lyrics etc. As a man I can relate to all of these things. In fact, even the logical up-side that the lack of men should equate to an abundance of single women very rarely materialises…
However, I’m not so sure that the blame can rest entirely with the church: maybe part of the problem is with us. Maybe we just need to get over ourselves, stop cringing when we sing “Beautiful One” and enter into it. So in the spirit of positivity and to show that I’m not entirely miserable, I thought I would list a few not-particularly-spiritual reasons why I love going to church.
1. My friends are there…
…OK, so the fact that I was there from a young age made it easier to form close friendships, but in my experience there are few friendlier places than a church. They are also home to some of the most hilarious people I have ever some across: I lose count of the times I have positively ached with laughter at a home group, or after a service, or even at a staff meeting. I sometimes wonder if being filled with the spirit also involves being given a deep sense of irony and a keen observational wit. Whatever the case, I know for sure that at a good church…
2. It’s easier to be yourself…
…I don’t care what anyone says: when you’re at school you can’t be yourself unless “yourself” happens to exactly fit the mould of what your peer group dictates it should be. This stops mattering so much as one gets older but it will always be there. Few of us are completely open and vulnerable at work, right? But at church there are always people who will accept you for who you are, and therefore…
3. You can talk about deep stuff…
…because we all sometimes need to discuss deeper subjects than why Andy Carroll’s transfer to Liverpool is a bad move for all concerned, or why petrol is so expensive, or why it is that everything Jimmy Carr does on TV is so spectacularly unfunny. We don’t very often perhaps, but sometimes times get tough and I find there is nowhere better than the church for this type of discussion. And funnily enough…
4. The music is actually pretty good…
…notwithstanding everything I said last week, I do actually love worship music and there is some truly great stuff out there. It may involve wading through a vast ocean of meandering melodies and déjà vu-inducing rhymes, but the masterpieces can be found. Another surprise is that…
5. I like a lot of the traditions…
…yes, liturgy, nice buildings, I happen to like all that Church of England stuff. There is actually nothing wrong with a bit of structure and routine and even historical interest, in the right balance.
Most importantly of all though, my church is my family, it’s my home, and I don’t think I will feel a greater sense of belonging anywhere in this life. Because at its best the Church can the closest thing we have to heaven on earth, and no matter how rubbish my week has been, when I’m there worshipping God everything else falls into place. And it really makes me sad that there are people who don’t get to be a part of it, to learn and grow and have community together. It isn’t perfect, and if I hadn’t been lucky enough to have grown up where I did then I might have a different view, but I can say honestly and unashamedly that I look forward to it every week.
So, as positive an account of the modern church as you’ll find anywhere, I reckon. Fear not though readers, next week I’ll be back to the usual mix of unhinged ranting and metaphors that take some minutes to decipher.
Last summer I was one of the 30,000 odd people who attended a Soul Survivor event. As usual when it came to choosing seminars, the worship leading ones were the first on my list, and this year there was the added bonus that Matt Redman was speaking. He is one of my heros, being probably the best worship leader this country has produced as well as being from my home town of Chorleywood.
I was struck particularly by one thing he said on the subject of songwriting:
“A lot of people have sent me worship songs over the years, and honestly I’ve never heard a truly bad one”
I found this a little surprising, and not because I am inundated with songs from aspiring young worship leaders (they would be wasting their time – I have no influence whatsoever). No, it was because, in my capacity as a reviewer for Crossrhythms, I regularly hear what I consider to be very poor CCM music that actually gets published.
Now you will notice that I said “very poor”, not terrible, not abysmal, not “from the very pen of Beelzebub himself”, just poor. Honestly I wish they were completely awful, because there is truly nothing worse than a mediocre song. You don’t love them, you don’t hate them, they don’t challenge you, they don’t raise any particular emotion. They aren’t too noisy, the guitars are very smooth, you probably more-or-less agree with the lyrics and the man playing them looks like a rather nice chap who you would very much like your daughter to marry. It’s all just terribly, terribly nice…
Frankly it strikes me as odd that we, who are supposed to have the most important, earth-shattering message the world has ever seen, don’t sound like we mean what we’re singing half as much as most secular artists. Take artists from any era: The Sex Pistols, Oasis, The Rolling Stones, Eminem, Ke$ha, S-Club-flippin’-7… they all put more feeling behind their words than most of us. Something is badly wrong when a neutral observer hearing Ke$ha’s lyrics encouraging the listener to “brush their teeth with a bottle of Jack”, would probably conclude that she cares more about justifying serious (and rather unconventional) alcohol abuse than the average Christian cares about the life-changing love of Jesus. No wonder the whole country thinks we’re boring and irrelevant.
Well I’ve had enough of it. I want songs with edge, with attitude, songs that challenge, songs that express real emotion – everything from true, uncontainable joy to total dark despair – because that reflects reality. I don’t want the same old cliches about tongues confessing and lambs being slain. I don’t want guitars with some lame, gutless, poor-imitation-of-U2 effect, because “heaven forbid we should upset old Mrs Davies in the third pew from the back with our popular beat music”. But most of all I don’t want songs that imply that being a Christian is just a rather smashing thing that one sings about, using bizarre quasi-biblical language, on a Sunday morning with one’s wife and three kids (all named after old testament figures, each more obscure than the last). Matt Redman actually summed it up in his (now positively ancient) song “Fill us up and send us out”. Because that sense of mission and purpose is what worship music, and frankly the whole of church as a concept should be about: filling and restoring us as worshippers, for us to then get right out of our comfort zones and actually do something that matters.
So what is to be done? Well all of this is not to say that rubbish secular music does not get released, it absolutely does. And it is not to say that there isn’t a lot of great worship music out there, in fact I’ve listed a few of my favourite artists below. Honestly though, I listen to some Christian albums and wonder how on earth they got published: one can’t help thinking that if they took something of the same standard to a secular label then they wouldn’t be given the time of day. The trouble is, or at least I get the impression, that there is a bit of an attitude among Christians of “we shouldn’t criticise people’s work because that’s a bit mean”. Needless to say I disagree, but I won’t go into that here, mainly because Nick Page actually does a much better job than me in his excellent book “And Now Let’s Move Into a Time of Nonsense“. This is what actually what got me thinking about the whole subject and it’s well worth a read.
Suffice to say that I think everyone involved in the songwriting process needs to a) be more discerning and b) take a LOT more risks. I want to see songs that challenge and provoke, songs that polarise the church between those who love them and those who can’t stand them. I want to see songs which could hold their own on a secular radio station and that could be appreciated as pieces of art by someone who didn’t necessarily agree with the lyrical content. The old argument that the world doesn’t like our music “because we’re Christians” may have some merit, but we have to consider the possibility that maybe it just isn’t good enough. Only when we accept these things, stop playing it safe and stop trying to please everyone will we release our full creative potential.
Now I hate to disappoint anyone, but I am not going to name and shame artists whose music makes me want to vomit. I don’t think it’s my place to slag off other people who are much more experienced and wiser than me – although they or anyone else are more than welcome to comment on here and disagree with me/call me names/threaten me with violence. My caveat here is that, up to a point, I am deliberately trying to be controversial and provocative, and I would love to stimulate debate on this subject.
Prove me wrong.
My personal favourite Christian artists:
- Matt Redman – his old stuff particularly
- Tim Hughes
- Vicky Beeching – particularly her old stuff but also her most recent album
- Phil Wickham
- Jesus Culture
- Hillsong
- Delirious
- Michael Gungor
There are plenty of others…
Related articles
Until today I had never heard of Peter Moger, although I am reliably informed that he was formerly the National Worship Development Officer for the Church of England. I’m afraid I have no idea who currently holds this position and Google has been less than forthcoming.
Seeing this quote today when it was posted on Musicademy’s Facebook page, it immediately captured my interest.
“There are two priorities – a need for theological training for songwriters and worship leaders in local churches, and for musical training and effective formation in worship leading for ordinands”
The part about there being a need for theological training for worship leaders is fairly straightforward, and something that I have certainly thought about. I was more interested in his call for ordinands to receive training in music and worship leading. Personally I think this sounds like a great idea. Many churches lack people with the time, talent or inclination to lead worship and it would be universally beneficial if, while on placement in a church, an ordinand was able to help out in this capacity and perhaps help to build up a team of volunteers while they were at it.
It’s great to see our leaders recognising how important musical worship is in the life of a church, and I hope his recommendations are implemented.
More daft looking photos of me and Mike in the studio… we’ve also got the final cut of “For All You’ve Done” finished so do have a listen. “Run To The Cross” is almost there as well and you will be the first to know when it’s done.
In the mean time, enjoy…
