‘Facedown’ by Matt Redman

Reviewing worship albums is always tricky. Live ones, even more so. The atmosphere that accompanies the recording of such albums can’t really translate to your experience when listening after the event. At the same time, it’s not really fair to judge it purely as a recording.

‘Facedown’, then, falls into the cracks between live album, worship album and performance. It has its work cut out, then, in succeeding on any these levels, and its to Matt Redman’s credit that it is largely successful. There are some excellent songs here, from the upbeat ‘Praise Awaits You’ to the anthemic ‘Mission’s Flame’ to the singalong ‘Worthy, You Are Worthy’. The last of these is perhaps the most congregational-friendly. ‘Nothing But The Blood’ should be, but it’s octave jumping chorus limits it severely, and the title track’s melody is too complicated to pull off in most settings. This is a shame – they’re arguably the best two songs on the album.

If I were to make one criticism of the record, it’s the fact that a lot of the arrangements are a bit samey – the downside, I suppose, of recording it live. Some variety wouldn’t have hurt...

'Beautiful News' by Matt Redman

'Beautiful News' is the 8th album by Matt Redman, coming an incredible 13 years after his debut. A lot had changed in this time. Redman had moved on from Soul Survivor, the festival that was for many years his natural home, and surrendered his status as the UKs great young worship songwriter to Tim Hughes. By the time of 'Beautiful News', he was more like a Kendrick to his generation, and I imagine he'll remain so - always there, continuously producing new stuff, but never quite having the impact he once did.

I'm not sure where we got this from. I think it was a present bought for Tessa, and I vaguely remember having trouble getting it to play on my mp3 player properly. By the time I'd got the problem resolved, the moment had passed, so I listened today with a fresh perspective.

As an album, 'Beautiful News' is mature, well produced, and never less than decent. That said, there's little on it get excited about. It falls into the all-too-unsatisfying category of overt-worship albums full of songs that wouldn't really work congregationally. As a result, it's hard to know what to do with it. Only 'You Never Let Go' stands out as a song that would work in churches, though personal experience tells me it's a struggle to actually sing - too high in the chorus, and too low in the voice if you transpose it.

So, all-in-all, it's pretty good, but I can't see myself listening to it again in a hurry.