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Raw
& unashamed - this is the sound of "Burn Service" CD, the
new release of youth oriented worship from Vineyard! In an earlier
review of a recent Vineyard CD ("It's All About Jesus"), I
referred to a new sound in Vineyard Music that is starting to hit stride
with truly "new" and truly "fresh" music. And
not "new & fresh" at the expense of truly God-centric
worship! The CD is located on the web, with sound clips at: http://www.worshipmusic.com/vmd9305.html
One
of the signs of revival in church history has been repentance. The
Burn Service CD is a venture into musical repentance and prayer. It
is this state of heart that has typified the music of the modern day
flames of revival. While I absolutely love the sound of this CD,
musically, what gets you "there" for the Burn CD is the abandon
of "self" posed in these song lyrics. Ryan Delmore, Darren
Clarke & Jesse Lane lead these songs with uncommon passion. It
is clear right from the start that this CD holds nothing back, and
pretends nothing! People praying to God in song; speaking their
weaknesses; crying out for God's holiness to truly consume and change
them. These folks are "tired of lukewarm living" and sing
for God to "set me on fire"- the text and title of the opening
cut.
"Refreshing" would be too subtle a word to describe this
CD. The powerful themes, driving guitar, and abandon vocals make this
whole CD more like "gut-wrenching" (and I mean that is a good
way). Have you ever had a time when repentance was so deep on your
heart that you just wept or called out or repented until your soul was
empty? Have you ever read the Psalms and contemplated how the
writers were really feeling in penning those songs? Now you are
seeing the kind of raw passion I am talking about. Somehow, Vineyard
managed to capture the essence of intensity that was going on with this
time worship. It is awesome!
In
listening to a CD for review, I tend to find myself getting drawn into the
technical and musical components of a recording, in order to provide a
complete review. I found it almost impossible to keep my mind on
"evaluating" this CD – there was just too much worship going
on! For those willing, this project rushes you into the presence of
God in a firestorm of music, scripture-based lyrical themes and passionate
prayer. Don't be fooled by imitations- this is the real thing!
With the haunting texture of vocals by Delmore and Lane especially,
the guitar powered liturgy of the Burn Service is very inviting. This CD
gives you a look into the music and hearts of the 20-something generation
of today. Starting with "Set Me On Fire", the worship band
lays their hearts out on the table for God.
Moving to the second
song, Jesse Lane leads an investigation into our lives as "New
Creation"s, using 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 2:20 as
underpinnings for this song. The driving groove and repeating 4
power-chord progression makes this an excellent rock contribution.
On the topic of musical style, you will notice this CD slips into a
country-esqe songs with "Real Love", "I Will Praise
You", and "Your Love Reaches Me". "Real Love" is
a simple ballad of the search for God's real love.
The fourth song, "Father", re-iterates the cry of prayer that
these worship leaders keep coming back to. Like "Set Me On
Fire", "Father" restates that we truly need God in light of
our emptiness. Like many of these songs on this CD, this is a song
worth of air play on CCM radio. Unique and edgy, yet simple and with
a singable "hook", this is very good material, even at an
entertainment level (though, clearly that is not the intention of this
music). In my opinion, Vineyard Music should look at promoting this CD to
CCM radio, if they haven't already done that- but more on that topic at
the end of the review.
My favorite cut from this entire album comes up next, with
"Shepherd". This song is a great, singable, rock anthem,
once again re-visiting the theme of trading our weakness for God's
strength and coming up with the conclusion that simply---
"You are my Shepherd, and I will follow You, I abandon my will and
yield to Yours"
Taking lyrical content of the sixth track, "I Will Praise You",
returns to the book Psalms, with chapter 42 (verse 5) outlining the lyrics
source for this song, another very singable, usable song for worship.
The next song, "Let It Come" has a sound that is about as
late-60's/early 70's as I have ever heard on a Vineyard album.
Another retro sound is rekindled a little in the background vocals of
track 9 ,"Friend". The album moves on through "All My
Days" and "Surely Goodness and Mercy", once again returning
the to Psalms for content, while keeping the beat strong and the guitar
chords crunching along to sing to. Very nice, and you don't feel
like the album gets stuck on a "blah" song anywhere along the
way.
The CD finishes with a wonderful love song, "I Love Your
Presence". I really liked this song, ambient in the verse, but
building into a chorus of thankfulness that gets more and more contagious,
excellent worship material here.
As you can tell, this CD comes with my highest recommendation.
Even so, there are some things this project doesn't come with- and that
worries me some. First, this project is put out to document Vineyard
music as it is being employed in worship throughout their churches.
So you might think that Vineyard would encourage the use of the materials
through the publication of the printed music for this great project--- but
you would be wrong. With a great project and no printed music, the
songs (though loved) may well go unused in just the context they would
most likely be useful---churches!
My hope is that Vineyard puts forward the effort to print
an accompanying songbook. The second thing this project does not
come with is promotion. I looked through several trade magazines and
found no mention of the Burn Service CD, except on a "shared" ad
with 4 albums and another music label. I found no strong promotion of it
from the distributors either. I also contacted Vineyard Music to ask them
what their plans were for this series "Y-Worship", hoping to
hear some good news about this bold new direction that Vineyard was
taking. Carla Turner, Manager of Media Relations for Vineyard Music, said
that "Y-Worship" is the "imprint" under which Vineyard
will target future youth-oriented projects coming out of the Vineyard
movement. According to Carla, there are tentative plans for future
releases under the "Y-Worship" brand. With no specific
projects already in production, one hopes this is not a
"one-time" CD for the "Y-Worship" series from
Vineyard.
All that said, Burn Service is a great product from Vineyard. Incredibly
useful in worship, yet their most progressive work to date. This CD,
along with "It's All About Jesus", and the two UK releases from
Brian Doerksen ("Winds of Worship #12" and "Hungry")
have loaded my church (and many others) with a excellent cache of great
new songs.
The
CD, sound clips, and review are all available on the worshipmusic.com web
site at:
http://www.worshipmusic.com/vmd9305.html |
