Journal

Matt Redman - We Shall Not Be Shaken

Posted on September 6th, 2009, in the afternoon

Themed on strength in troubled times, 'We Shall Not Be Shaken' is Matt Redman's ninth album.

Matt Redman is one of the few worship writers whose albums I buy on release regardless of whether I've heard anything from them. His lyrical depth, musical innovation and commitment to writing for the worshipping church make his records consistently relevant for those of us who lead congregational worship.

That said, my very first impressions of 'We Shall Not Be Shaken' were of slightly over-familiar U2-esque guitar work on a number of tracks and a few, um, recycled lyrics from other Matt Redman songs ("breathing out your praise", the seemingly obligatory "we will dance" song). I wasn't sure whether the album was going to be true to form. Happily, further listens have allayed my fears.

'You Alone Can Rescue' quickly sprang to the fore and is immediately usable for congregational worship. The chorus is familiar to those who have been led by Matt over the last year or so and the verses really fill the song out.

Several other songs have also emerged as noteworthy:

'This Is How We Know' is a great setting of both John 3:16 and 1 John 3:16, powerfully linking the two ideas.

'Through it all' ultimately delivers less than the anthemic opening chorus seems to promise but it's a good song.

'The Glory of Our King' has a great guitar riff and is a stand-out example of the 'we're going to live for your glory' type of song. The "we are/you are" lines in the bridge are particularly good.

The brilliant bridge in 'Remembrance (Communion Song)' - "Dying, You destroyed our death/Rising You restored our life/Lord Jesus come in glory" - transcends an otherwise only reasonable song. It may be worth using the song just for that section.

'Gloria' is a great song musically. The vocal range is huge so I'm not sure I can see it translating to a congregational setting but it really is good to listen to!

The album closes with 'My Hope', a rich, meditational setting of the first two verses of 'My hope is built on nothing less' with a new chorus.

Unusually for a Matt Redman release all but one song are co-writes. Jonas Myrin, a Hillsong London worship leader, contributes to over half the tracks, with a number of others including Chris Tomlin, Ben Cantelon and Matt's wife Beth also appearing in the credits.

In many cases these are best-of-breed songs on some of the popular themes in contemporary worship songwriting. It's a good album! But I'm not sure there's enough distinctively fresh to elevate 'We Shall Not Be Shaken' into the company of the two or three Matt Redman records that have genuinely contributed to the development of worship music as a whole.

I'm applying a very high standard due to the exceptional level of Matt Redman's work overall. It's probably unrealistic to expect every record to reach such heights and the bottom line is that 'We Shall Not Be Shaken' is certainly well worth the investment.

• Listen to 'We Shall Not Be Shaken' on Spotify
• Matt Redman currently has chord sheets and brief explanations of each song from the album up on his website.
• Buy the album from Kingsway