Passion have, over the years provided us with some real hits music wise, and its fair to say that I always love their CD's. A quick listen to this one shows that they're on top form, I'd even go so far as to say that the first three tracks alone would be worth paying the price for the CD, and that is in no means at all a slur on the rest of what will quite possibly be the best worship record of the year.
In the past Passion have occasionally I find gotten the mix a little off, while you always have classic worship songs, some of the previous albums have occasionally slowed a little too much and erred, in places, on the side of having too much in the way of wordiness. Not to take anything away from them as they were all good albums, but some contained skippable tracks, where as this one you don't want to miss a beat, it picks you up from the opening syllables of “How Awesome is the Lord Most High” and does not let go of you until it closes and you are left singing the simple yet powerful “Our God Reigns”, which, now we come to mention it, you may well be singing hours, days, nay weeks, afterwards.
Now, the first thing I heard about both the conference and the CD is that their was this song, it was called Party and it made you want to, well, Party. Seemingly everyone who attended the conference mentioned it, and, having now heard it, it's no surprise at all. The CD seems to hang neatly around this track, I love it because it's so tempting to open with a song that blows people away, then follow with a couple of slightly less beaty ones, and by track four of some worship releases you can be reaching for the Espresso to try and stay awake, but here we have two very solid tracks to start off that will, I'm sure deservedly become very popular and widely used in much the way some of Chris Tomlin's other tracks have, but then, when you expect a dip in tempo they hit you with it, heralded by Tomlin shouting "We got one word, we're gonna paaaaarty!" psyching up the crowd, getting them clapping in sync before the guitar bursts into life and the party quite literally starts. It's a great track, that makes you want to dance, and that is by far my favourite type of track, yeah, yeah, we can do the whole deep moments of contemplation thing too, later, maybe, but hey, first up I wanna party, and thats where, like ronsil, this song does exactly what it says on the tin.
However, its only fair to say that there is far more to this album than a few moments to mosh by, as is shown when the party tempo slows a little and moves into the powerful "Jesus paid it all" sung by Kristian Stanfil. Ok, ok, you spotted my hypocrisy there? Well, yes, it is the old hymn, but its very well done, with good music giving it a more modern twist and in fairness it fits well in its place on the record. Flowing into three songs from Charlie Hall characterised by his usual intense style of leading, good track choices that are upbeat and you can really get into, they reminded me how good his most recent release, Flying Into Daybreak really was.
David Crowder Band open the closing section with the title track, the achingly beautiful "Everything Glorious" and then bursts forth into "You Are My Joy" and "We Win" from the much acclaimed album 'A Collision'. We win is a triumphant celebration of bringing down the walls with praise "shout louder, loud until the walls fall down!" it's loud and brash, just how I likes it, and then, the CD closes with "Our God Reigns" simple, simple lyrics in a passionate chorus "Our God reigns, Our God reigns, forever Your Kingdom reigns" that's the whole song, yet it works great.
The conclusion? This is the best Passion release for some time, possibly their best ever. It bursts with life, with intense spirit filled praise that makes you want to jump around, and yet at the right moments it takes you into quieter worship. A must for all Christian record collections, if you buy only one worship record this year, make it this one, put it in the CD player, turn the volume up to eleven and enjoy a truly awesome live worship experience.
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