After a year's hiatus from Live releases last year Passion are back this year with God Of This City, featuring the familiar worship leaders and song writers. The Passion releases are usually a good listen and an excellent resource for worshippers and this is no different.
The album really shows the depth or worship leading talent that comes together for Passion events. Aswell as the familiar names; Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall, DCB* and Matt Redman there are contributions from Kristian Stanfill (who also featured on Everything Glorious) and Fee, who are a really exciting worship band led by Steve Fee who has also been involved in the past. Add to this Christy Nockels of Watermark fame and you have what has to be one of the best line ups around.
It's a good album which proves to be very listenable and has consistently strong songs. The title track, God of this City, is written by Bluetree from Belfast, it has the feel like a Revival Town (from King of Fools. Now that's old school for ya!) for the year '08 - declaring the great thing's God has for a city, and you can understand why it was used at the gathering in cities across America. I like Christy's version of Hosanna by Brooke Fraser but it is very similar, it fits well on the record because it's a great song but sounds almost excatly like the United Live version. That leads us, however, to the middle of the album and perhaps it's best part. Sing, Sing, Sing is an exciting new track from Chris Tomlin which is another that is bound to fly up the CCLI charts - you have to wonder if Chris is trying to take over the whole top ten. Beautiful Jesus, a powerful song from Kristian Stanfill and We shine from Fee - a rip-roaring track that doesn't so much sing as shout the joy of redemption. I downloaded the Steve Fee album on eMusic last year and it was one of the best releases I heard all year, they have an exciting and uptempo feel which is very fresh. It'll be really good to see more from both Kristian and Fee on future albums as they have a really good sound and are very strong songwriters.
Passion - God of this city is out now and is well worth a listen. As with many worship CD's now it does feature a few songs that you may already have, but they fit in well on the album it works as a whole. The album is a really good release and keeps up the high standards we've come to expect from the Passion team.
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