Kim Gentes

"Your love never fails,
It never gives up,
It never runs out on me. "

This is the anthem call of the newest album from Vineyard Music's Jeremy Riddle.

Some projects come loaded with great music. Some with great songwriting. Some with timely message that is beyond both music and lyrics- a sense in which now is the time for us to all to sing a song together.

Today releases the 3rd album from Jeremy Riddle, worship leader and songwriter. One listen to this album and you are immediately struck by Jeremy's desire to be set on fire by God, his unconcern for following a formula and his ernest contrition in songwriting. On the fuel of Jeremy's great vocals, songwriting and passion, producers Bobby Hartry and Ed Cash deliver the best album yet from Jeremy Riddle.

Having heard all of his past published work, including studio and live projects, this album "Furious" represents the most diverse venture yet for Jeremy. Diverse on two main fronts- musical style and songwriting. Stylistically, Furious journeys to acoustic ambient sounds (Fall Afresh, Here, Always), wall-of-sound rhythmic song (Furious), soft rock melody (Love Came Down), building pop/rock anthems (One Thing Remains, You Are Good, One Thirst and Hunger, Glory To The Lamb, The Lord Is My Shepherd), and pensive minor ballad (Walk In The Promise).

I love the hills and valleys of tempo, instrumentation and lyrics given place in this album. It doens't run you over with a frieght train of hard-driving rock anthems, and doesn't lose structure with tiresome endless introspective songs. There are great prayer songs here, but they range from the hungry-call songs like Fall Afresh and Always to declarative scripture prayers like The Lord Is My Shepherd.

The albums adds some encouraging diversity to Jeremy's songwriting, with many songs co-written by Bethel church songwriters (Jeremy's home church). Writers Brian Johnson, Jeremy Edwardson and Christa Black bring added freshness to the songs of this album, taking it beyond the wonderful but limited range of Jeremy's past recordings.  The stand out church favorite will doubtless be "One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails)", which has already become a very fast rising favorite in churches around the world.

My favorite tracks are Furious, One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails), with The Lord Is My Shepherd being my standout favorite.  This album is georgeous music, free from a style rut, well-written and encouraging. One thread that follows through a great number of the songs is the encouraging, grace-filled messages of the song lyrics. A thankful heart resounds on nearly every song, and it lifts us all up to join with Jeremy as he sings:

If the storms of life they come
And the road ahead gets steep
I will lift these hands in fatih, I will believe
I remind myself of all the You've done
And the life I have because of Your Son

Come take this journey and lift your heart to the Son. A great album, and a beautiful musical narrative of God's love!  Furious is my Editor's Choice Worship Album for 2011.

Available already at WorshipTeam.com (full length audio, chord charts and lyrics for subscribers).

Product Link : Audio samples for all 12 tracks available at Amazon

In Him,
Kim Gentes

When Kingsway songs and albums from Matt Redman, Delirious and Tim Hughes began flooding across the Atlantic to the US, it was a blissful time of music discovery for many in America. Here was some progressive rock sounds that held values of praise and worship as their core lyric content. During that time, there was no more surprising and innovative album that "King Of Fools", the sophomore release from Delirious?.

On initial introduction, many churches who had been receptive to the "Cutting Edge" project and Redman's "Heart of Worship". found "King of Fools" to be too progressive for their local church music repetoire.  And indeed it was lightyears ahead of most chorus-filled praise and worship band repetoires or music skill. The layered U2-esque and washy sounds of multi-electric guitar arrangements, added to pop vocals of Martin Smith and intricate rhythmic progressions of drummer Stew Smith were for full-on, radio-ready bands, not Sunday morning ensembles.

That said, "King of Fools" was one of the absolute best musical treatments of the modern worship genre.  While the songs were slower to gain acceptance from general Sunday morning church, youth groups were quick to begin using this amazing cache of songs. The slamdunk favorite of this album was Deeper, which was a plaintiff cry with great pop motif, infectious melody and musical groove.  Youthful lyrics that hinted whimsically at Biblical allusion while being passionately a human prayer. Deeper, along with White Ribbon Day, where both released to general market UK as singles and reached #20 and #41 respectively, a huge landmark.  This was not a tiny dent in a Christain market- it was the beginning of a legitimate rock band in the general UK market, making chart noise with blatantly Christian lyrics, even worship lyrics.

Beyond the commercial, radio and industry accolodates, listening to Delirious? on their "King of Fools" release is such a blissful journey, it became a long time favorite of mine personally.  In this 13 track epistle, Smith and co., communicate with some of the best written lyrics in all of Christian pop music. Combined with Stu Garrard's guitars, ethereal and crisp keys of Tim Jupp, brilliant drumming of the aforementioned Stew Smith, and the extended range of Martin Smith's haunting vocals, every track on the album is a keeper. No kidding, really! There isn't a single bad song on this project. What is beautiful about this album is the range it crosses in its progression. From wall of sound, washing reverberations in Sanctify, Promise, King or Cripple to pop-anthems like Deeper, Revival Town, Louder Than The Radio and History Maker to gallant balads like White Ribbon Day and August 30th  to pensive prayers of Hands of Kindness and What a Friend I've Found.

It is almost impossible to pick a favorite tune on this project, but if forced to, I can list my top 3 songs from this album: Deeper, White Ribbon Day, and What A Friend I've Found. These three very different songs reflect the skill, lyrical genuis and musical diversity that Delirious? brought fresh into Christian music and birthed in the modern worship movement.

If you don't have this album, get it. It's that simple. An unbelievable album in every respect.

Product Link :  King of Fools (MP3 Album) and King of Fools (Songbook)

Review by Kim Gentes

I remember getting my original copies of the UK released Cutting Edge CDs in the mail. Cardboard jackets with plastic inset trays for the CD. They were sent to me from a friend at EMI CMG. They were working on a launch the new Delirious? website to promote them in the US and I was helping with some online marketing and giving feedback on songs for a 3 song promo demo CD. It was 1996. I remember listening to great songs like Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?, Find Me In The River and Happy Song. Wow. Unlike anything I had heard on a "worship" recording.

Then I heard I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever. I knew, in that moment, that "church music" had changed. Songs, they say, can have a life of their own. When songs can communicate something so relevant that we all want to join in, but say it in a unique way that awakens our emotions, those songs become "ours". As I listened to I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever, tears began to roll down my face. I was singing that song because it was truth captured in well-crafted art. Within a year, millions of other people across North America would learn that song and join in. It became an anthem of God's love for many of us.

The Cutting Edge CDs were eventually released in the US in 1998 as a double CD. Cutting Edge not only impacted worshipers and leader across the world, they inspired other writers. I remember a year or so earlier at a worship conference, Brian Doerksen talking about how he was being inspired by these same UK songs from early EP versions of the CDs he had gotten while in UK.  He was impacted, as were we were all impacted by what Martin Smith and crew brought to church music. Today, it's hard to imagine modern worship without the profound impact of these songs and the breakout sound of the band.

The songs on this collection are recorded crisp, clear and in the studio. While Delirious? would become known for their layered U2-esque sound, Cutting Edge highlighted arrangements that were brilliant more for their sparse intention than their "wall of sound" attack.  If you are one of those people who didn't get a copy of the Cutting Edge double CD, make sure to check out the CD on Amazon, or get the entire 25 song MP3 album there for a fraction of the cost.

These songs and this album are now classic, but remain some of the most popular songs in modern hymnody.

Product Link :  Cutting Edge (Double Album) and Delirious? - Cutting Edge (Songbook)

Review by Kim Gentes