Reviews

Roy Fields is best known from the worship events at Lakeland, Florida which were broadcast to a global audience of over 1 million including unprecedented coverage on God TV. Roy was the worship leader at these events and has already released a number of albums include 'We Are The Generation' and 'Less of Me'. He tours the world with his wife, Melanie, as evangelists and 'Rain Down' is his latest live recording.

The opening tracks didn't leave me with a very favourable opinion. OK so it's a live album, but Roy's near constant talking to the crowd gets a bit too much. There is lots of shouting-out mid song to encourage the crowd to 'sing along' or to mean the words they're singing. If you were in the crowd during the concert this probably didn't seem much of an issue, but it doesn't translate as well when you're listening in your living room.

Opening title track, 'Rain Down', begins with Roy's screaming voice pumping up the crowd as he launches into the Delirious? classic. Now, Roy has a very different sounding voice to Martin Smith, so that takes a little getting used to if you are already familiar with this song. But to be honest Roy's version did little for me. Musically it is performed well, but I struggled to come to terms with Roy's vocal style, it just feels a bit too screechy at times.

By the time you get to third track 'We Are The Generation' it starts to feel like Roy has settled down, or maybe I've just grown used to his style. He is definitely less shouty in this more hushed, worshipful, slower tempo song with its good catchy lyrics. It's over 7 minutes long and is one of the strongest tracks on the album. But the ultimate track for me has to be 'You, You Are God', a faster track with a good beat and enjoyable to sing along to.

'You Are The Lord' is perhaps more of a filler than an actual song. It has nice guitar and drum instrumentals, with a few repeated lines of "You are the Lord my God You dwell within my heart", and it is something that you can really worship God to. The following song actually is descried as a 'Spontaneous Song' ('It's all about You') and as the music idles in the background Roy calls out a prayer from his heart.

Roy opens 'Fill This Place' with a prayer and yet more instructions to the crowd to feel God move. Once the song itself finally gets going it's actually very good, led by a gentle keyboard and jangle of cymbals. A beautiful and quiet worship song, and another 7 minute track. Another track which you can tell must have a big impact live is 'Less Of Me', where the presence of God seems to swirl around the crowd like a mist hanging in the atmosphere.

Two Delirious? cover versions out of 10 track on an album, and naming the album after one of them, is perhaps a slight cop out. Roy clearly has some great songs of his own and it would have been nice to hear more of those, but as far as cover versions of 'Majesty' go this is undoubtedly one of the better ones. It certainly does a brilliant song justice. Closing track 'In The Presence Of Angels' is another highlight of the album, musically very good, with strings, nice tones and well blended guitar riffs.

Overall it is a strong album, but I would have preferred less of Roy's crowd chat and more original songs to turn this into a really great live album.

Review by Dave Wood

LTTM Rating 2.5 out of 5 Stars
Stand out tracks
You, You Are God
We Are The Generation
In The Presence Of Angels