Journal

Tim Hughes - When Silence Falls

Posted on October 4th, 2004, in the afternoon

This is Tim Hughes’ first album since taking up the reigns as Soul Survivor’s new worship-leader-in-chief. There’s plenty on ‘When Silence Falls’ to show that far from just filling Matt Redman’s shoes he is developing a positive and distinctive song writing style of his own.

His previous album ‘Here I am To Worship’ was a fresh, guitar-driven record, spanning the usual spectrum of worship styles and themes from up-tempo praise to slower reflective tracks (the latter exemplified in the globally successful title track); ‘When Silence Falls’ remains centre-territory overall, but with a lot more dimensions.

The album includes a few songs that have already made their way around UK churches, including ‘Beautiful One’, ‘Consuming Fire’ and a great cover of Phatfish’s ‘Holy’, but if you’ve heard any of these live you may be surprised by the versions on the record.

On first listen you can’t help but be stuck by some of the adventurous arrangements. By contrast to the acoustic guitar style Tim leads worship with live there is a lot of piano, keyboard, and effects throughout the record. It works brilliantly on tracks like ‘Giver of Life’, and there are only a couple of moments where there's even hint of having gone a step too far.

The second thing you notice as you dig deeper is the slightly off-the-beaten-track lyrical content in some of the songs. ‘Consuming Fire’ opens with the interesting line “There must be more than this”, while ‘When the tears fall’ is a beautiful lament. Strength through troubled times is a theme even in tracks like the Soul in the City anthem ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’ (no, not that ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’!).

It’s a strong album overall, probably a keeper. The arrangements make it instantly good to listen to, and there’s enough depth that it doesn’t wear thin after only a few listens. It’s very much the next iteration of the Soul Survivor style, so if you like Matt Redman’s stuff, or Tim’s other album you wont be disappointed. If not, it’s worth a listen anyway—you’ll probably still find yourself engaging with worshipping heart behind the album.

For more information on Tim Hughes go to passionforyourname.com, to buy the album go through Soul Survivor.