Dave's Review

Acoustic Worship Volume 2:
America's 25 Favorite Series (Brentwood Records)


by David Murray

Length:58:35
Cuts:Shine Jesus, Shine!
Firm Foundation
Shout To The Lord
People Of God
We Bow Down
Awesome In This Place
Sweet, Sweet Spirit
The Trees Of The Field
Be Exalted, O God
The Battle Belongs To The Lord
You Are My All In All
Mighty Is Our God
Lamb Of God
Ah, Lord God
Holy Ground
Almighty
I Stand In Awe
Yes, Lord Yes
Seek Ye First
You Are Worthy
We Bring The Sacrifice Of Praise
We Will Glorify
I Love You with The Love Of The Lord
Jesus, Name Above All Names
Holy, Holy

The America's 25 Favorite Series is an established product line from Brentwood Records with over a dozen audio titles. Several songbooks are also available. Brentwood has achieved success with this line by combining good production quality with very simple arrangements of familiar hymns and Praise and Worship tunes. Acoustic Worship Volume 2 revisits some of the tunes from previous releases, giving them new intimate coffee-house type settings.

Praise and Worship choruses are by nature simple and repetitive lyrically, making it difficult to maintain variety with them. Acoustic Worship overcomes this obstacle by making the average length of each arrangement around two minutes. The instrumentations and tempos from one cut to the next are never exactly the same, staving off the monotony that excessive repetition otherwise brings.

The best use for this album is group sing-alongs. Brentwood has exploited this potential for the entire series by offering your choice of a standard stereo format, or a "split-track" which places the music and singers in separate speakers of the stereo field. "Split-track" allow you to rehearse a tune along with the recorded singers using both stereo speakers, after which you may turn off one speaker and hear just the music and yourself.

While there is a cohesive musical similarity throughout Acoustic Worship, the flavor varies from a celtic feel on "Lamb Of God" to light rock vibes like "Ah, Lord God" and "The Trees Of The Field" to easy going ballads like "Shout To The Lord." Some arrangements bring the various artist project Songs From The Loft to mind. It's refreshing to hear these classics presented in such a simple way; simple enough for the average listener to jump in and sing along.

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