Love Shine Through

I’m getting really excited for March 21st, the release date for Tim Hughes’ latest studio album Love Shine Through. This one’s going to be a cracker!

Tim’s been dotting samples of some of the songs around the place which is a great way of preparing us for the musical feast we are about to enjoy.

His most collaborative project ever, Hughes further co-writes for Love Shine Through with Ben Cantelon, Phil Wickham, Nick Herbert, Nikki Fletcher and Keys Kraayenoord. Additional guest musicians adding their unique stamp on the album include members of Rend Collective Experiment on various instruments, Jesus Culture’s Kim Walker-Smith adding her distinct vocals, Michael Guy Chislet (Hillsong UNITED) on guitars, Josiah Sherman (The Listening) adding his keyboard work and Marc James (Vineyard, Verra Cruz) on slide guitar, background vocals. Additional backing voices on the album include: Jerry Brown, David Grant, Fay Simpson and Jesus House Gospel Choir. The album was mixed by Sam Gibson (Pearl Jam, Jesus Culture, Elvis Costello) and mastered at Abbey Road.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Tim Hughes. His songs are in a class of their own as over the years he has helped to shape and define what we have come to know as a ‘worship song’. Over his 15 years of songwriting, he has constantly provided a mix of profound poetry and beautiful melodies, helping to enable the church and the worshipper every step of the way. God has blessed him with such a wonderful gift in this area and Tim certainly hasn’t let it go to waste.

Perhaps his best known worship song is Here I Am To Worship, which featured on his first studio album of the same name. In many ways this song typifies Tim’s style – a simple but heartfelt, personal approach to God in the chorus and a wealth of deep lyrics in the verses – the line, “All for love’s sake became poor…” is a perfect example of the rich poetry in his writing.

Love Shine Through kicks off with Counting on Your Name – I posted its music video a while back. The song is an anthemic declaration of where we find ourselves – the only thing that we can count on to save us is the name of Jesus. It’s a cracking song that I can see being heavily featured in worship sets in churches throughout the country. Tim led worship at Momentum 2010 with it and it was so powerful.

The second track, God Is Coming, which Tim co-wrote with Martin Smith of Delirious? has been going through my head all day. The chorus is perfect:

Here You come
Running to find me
King of the universe
Yes, our God is the God who saves
Here You come
To light up the darkness
Forever glorious
Yes, our God is the God who saves

The chorus speaks of the God we see in the story of the Prodigal Son, literally running to meet us as we find our way to Him. Such a beautiful picture of our Father. The harmony (which sounds like Martin Smith) over the top of Tim’s vocal line makes this chorus one of the best I have heard for a long time.

Tim has also recorded All Glory, which was written by Nikki Fletcher (his colleague from WorshipCentral) – I have written a post about the song, which is here.

At Your Name is a co-write with Phil Wickham. Aside from the quite hilarious use of the rhyming pair “crumble” and “tumble” in the first verse, this is another one that is well worth a listen. It is the ‘New Song’ on WorshipCentral this month and you can find a chordsheet there too. I especially like the use of the word ‘Yahweh’ here. I’m not sure why but it’s something that makes the song stand out somewhat. The album actually features this song twice – one version is a more laid back, reflective piece, while the other is a full-on anthem, ready for worship leaders to take and use in services.

Many of the songs can be found as demo versions on the songs page of WorshipCentral website, along with chordsheets.

In addition, be sure to listen to the WorshipCentral podcast from March 2011 – there is an extensive interview with Tim about the album and the opportunity to sample some of the tracks. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to hear him chat about his experiences while recording and writing the songs and what some of them mean to him personally.

A full review of Love Shine Through from ChristianSonic can be found here.

Waiting for the summer

[This is not my photo - found it here - I just thought it looked nice and was relevant!]

The sun was out today as I walked home, and it was just beautiful, even though it’s still a tiny bit on the chilly side. I had a coat on so I kept warm and could simply enjoy in the golden rays, weaving their way through the leafless trees. It really reminded me of the summer and also how much I’m looking forward to this summer in particular.

I know we’re still only half-way through winter and we’ve got a lot of rainy days to get through first, but once we’re there, it’s going to be pretty awesome! I just love the warmth, the light, being able to go out in a t-shirt and shorts, barbecues, going to the beach (which really isn’t the same in January!), sunbathing and daylight staying until late. England really can be a beautiful country.

This summer is especially nice though – for the first time I’ll be free of school – no work to do, no thoughts of going back in September, no limit to the fun factor. Hopefully I won’t be bored having less to do, although that said, it’s looking like it’s going to be pretty awesome!

The weather put me in quite a good mood, and also in the mood for some summery songs… So here are two that I would like to share with you!

The first is called Waiting for the Summer by Delirious? from the album Audio Lessonover. I love this song! And I also love Delirious? incidentally… This is the best version of the music video I could find on YouTube, so I apologise that the audio & video are slightly out of sync.

The second song is called Summer Nights by Rascal Flatts, possibly the happiest band I have ever heard! I love their style, and this song always makes me smile.

Hope you enjoyed those, I certainly did when I listened to them. I’ve decided this post is quite silly, as the light outside is beginning to fade, at only 5 o’clock…