Tim Hughes - Love Shine Through
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Title:
Love Shine Through
Type:
Album
Released:
19 Apr 2011 (US), 21 Mar 2011 (UK)
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Review
Probably the best known worship leader in the UK, Tim Hughes is about to unleash on the world his latest offering of worship songs via his new album Love Shine Through. This is Tim's fourth studio album, following his debut back in 2001 Here I Am To Worship which introduced the world to Tim's most well known song Light of The World. Soon after followed When Silence Falls which contained the amazing Consuming Fire and Wonderful So Wonderful, both songs still impacting the church since their release in 2004.
In 2007 we saw the release of Tim Hughes' biggest album...
Read More Probably the best known worship leader in the UK, Tim Hughes is about to unleash on the world his latest offering of worship songs via his new album Love Shine Through. This is Tim's fourth studio album, following his debut back in 2001 Here I Am To Worship which introduced the world to Tim's most well known song Light of The World. Soon after followed When Silence Falls which contained the amazing Consuming Fire and Wonderful So Wonderful, both songs still impacting the church since their release in 2004.
In 2007 we saw the release of Tim Hughes' biggest album to date, Holding Nothing Back which contained the anthemic Happy Day and Holding Nothing Back, which Jesus Culture took and made it's own.
In between releasing Holding Nothing Back and Tim's brand new offering Love Shine Through, he released his first live album Happy Day, recorded at London's famous Shepherds Bush Empire. The venue was filled to capacity with 2000 worshippers, and the cameras were rolled out to record what happened on stage that night. Aside from being a recording artist, Tim Hughes also works as worship pastor at Holy Trinity Brompton and heads up the amazing Worship Central Project with Al Gordon, Nicky Fletcher and Ben Cantelon.
Many of you might already think you know how this review will go: "Tim Hughes has recorded twelve amazing worship songs, that will be used in the local church for years to come", and yes you would be right, but that is only part of the picture, let me try and explain.
On this album there seems to be a maturity in Tim's songwriting, yet at the same time a fresh push of creativity within the recording of the album. Tim is trying different things in the studio so as not to just create a 'safe worship album'. Just listen to Saviour Song, this could have easily been a good acoustic worship song if recorded straight: verse, chorus, verse, chorus. But what is a good song has turned into a great song, with the strong powerful female vocals adding that extra sparkle to the song.
You could put this down to spending more time on the album as a whole, you could also put it down to the creative input of producer Martin Smith (former Delirious? lead singer). Certainly you can hear Martin's influences coming through in a lot of the songs, and at times there is a hint of that Delirious sound on the album - God Is Coming and Wake Up being just two examples, the latter being a great praise song.
On this album Tim has drafted in some of the mates he has met over the years, with song writing collaborations with the likes of Ben Cantelon, Nick Herbert, Nikki Fletcher, Keys Kraayenoord, Stu G and Martin Smith. These people add a fresh approach to the songs, adding a creative edge to the tracks they co-wrote with Tim. Sometimes working as a team brings out the best in people and this definitely comes out on Love Shine Through.
Not only has Tim got some great songwriter to help out the album, he has also drafted in some amazing musicians, which include members of Rend Collective Experiment, Kim Walker-Smith (Jesus Culture), Marc James (Vineyard, Verra Cruz), Michael Guy Chislet (Hillsong United). Jerry Brown (Girls Aloud), David Grant and Fay Simpson on backing vocals, the Jesus House Gospel Choir and the keyboard genius of Josiah Sherman (The Listening). Wow, what a list of people.
For me the people that give the biggest dimension to the album are Rend Collective Experiment, who throughout the album add their distinctive sound. Listen to their saxophones and big band sound during title track Love Shine Through - it's worth the money for that in itself. The brilliant idea of bringing in these guys really adds a new dimension to what Tim is trying to convey.
Now let's talk about some of the other songs - lyrically Tim has again written songs for the church, songs about declaring who God is and His majesty, songs that up-lift you to keep going with God when times are hard (Counting on Your Name) and songs that talk of God's glory moving in a hurting world (God Is Coming, "God Is A God That Saves")
. One of the songs that jumps out on the album is a version of Nicky Fletcher's single All Glory which is massively different to Nicky's version. Tim has taken this strong song and really changed the style, if anything it's a lot softer than before, bringing a nice change of pace to the middle of the album. This version of the songs ends with a big choir sound that takes the soft sound of the start of the song to another level.
If you're looking for the Happy Day song of the album, it would have to come in Tim's new version of Jesus Saves. Again this is different to the version that appeared on Tim's live album, starting off a bit more poppy and then building into the big guitar sound we have come to know from this song, building and building into a big anthem.
A lot of the songs on this album start off slow and build into big songs, bigger and bolder than anything that Tim has recorded before, for example Ecclesiastes begins as a heartfelt cry on piano and vocals, but then at around 2 minutes the song takes on a new lease of life. "Now's the time for singing, raise your voice", sung quietly, slowly, building and growing into a wall of noise. Throw in some Rend Collective trumpet work and driving drums and this song turns into something totally different, amazing.
Overall this album is a great mix of styles and sounds, with strong songs produced creatively. Tim said recently about worship "I feel like we're on the cusp of a fresh move with worship, In some ways it feels like we've got a bit stale, maybe we're in danger of settling on a formula in congregational worship" and if this is how the fresh wave of worship is going to sound then the future looks exciting. Tim hasn't settled for a safe mediocre album, he has gone for songs that are bolder and stronger than anything he has written before, the most complete album Tim has ever made.
Review by Jono Davies
LTTM Rating 5 out of 5 Stars
Standout Tracks
Wake Up
Ecclesiastes
Love Shine Through Articles
Following it's UK release last month, the new studio album from British worship leader Tim Hughes, 'Love Shine Through' , has now been released in the US. The album is available on CD as well as from the US iTunes and UK iTunes…
Tim Hughes has now released his new studio album 'Love Shine Through' in the UK. The album is available on CD as well as from the iTunes UK store where a special 'Deluxe Edition' is also available. The album will be released in…
Ahead of the release of his new studio album 'Love Shine Through', Tim Hughes has been talking about the inspiration behind the album. "It's full of songs about belief, faith, rising up, taking a stand", says Tim, who's latest…
The fourth full-length studio album from Tim Hughes, 'Love Shine Through', will be released in the UK on 21st March 2011 and in the US on 19th April 2011. Produced by former Delirious? lead singer Martin Smith and featuring a…
The title of the new studio album from Tim Hughes will be 'Love Shine Through'. A US release date for the album has been announced as 19th April 2011 by Kingsway, with the UK release date likely to be around the same time. Tim…
