One Man In The Middle
Discover Your New Soundtrack
Your Mercy, like all of Baloche’s albums, was crafted with the local church and worship leader in mind. The songs were recorded live in a Brooklyn studio over several nights and are congregational in nature with stripped down instrumentation. Baloche describes the album as “honest worship sessions with very few overdubs, a back-to-basics simplicity of worship... singing together new prayers and songs as a community to glorify God.”
Starting in 1992 it is fair to say that Paul Baloche is one of the most established worship leaders active and writing today. He has certainly been active in 2016 with a few albums giving him co-writing credit or 'featuring' credit on at least one track. Paul has been responsible for a number of fantastic worship songs over the years including one of my favourites "Open The Eyes Of My Heart". I think it is fair to say that Paul's style reflects honest, easy to sing, Biblical lyrics that seem to be largely untouched by some of the trends in the wider worship music world. You will not find anything here that sounds like a Hillsong album, this album is a singer, his guitar and some other instrumentation with none of the overdubs and electronica that are a large part of those trends.
Paul kicks off his album with "Psalm 92 (It Is Good)" which, as the name suggests, based very heavily on that original Psalm. You can tell that the simplicity is the intention here, the focus is to worship with the simplest of backing instrumentation so that it is the lyrics that are the object of the focus here. This is easy to sing and feels like it would work in many different church settings. "Once For All", the second track, has a more modern feel to it and see's Paul collaborating with Matt Redman and Jorge Mhondera. This is a track that focuses heavily on the cross and like many of the great older hymns attempts to explain in human terms what happened in those hours and how it has eternal consequences for us.
Without seeming ancient there are many tracks here that feel like quasi-hymns, the title track "Your Mercy" is one of these. To say these tracks are fairly light on the instruments this track builds up a great feeling of glory and majesty as the singer considers the nature of God. Much of this track focuses on our part in this great story of redemption and God's reaction to it. Helping some of the tracks feel like hymns are a couple of tracks that utilise parts of hymns such as "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (We Turn)" where he teams up with Aaron Shust to re-imagine the classic hymn. It is interesting to look at the differences between the old version by Helen L. Lemmel and the new version and to notice what is included and what is left out!
"To The Cross I Come" borrows from Charlotte Elliott's classic hymn "Just As I Am" with original verses from Paul and his co-writers who just happen to be All Son's and Daughters who also appear on this song. This track is not to be confused with another Baloche track called "To The Cross" from 2009.
The last track on the album features a quite beautiful track that is fairly simple, but the complimentary vocals from Madi Cunningham make this track worth a listen.
This new album has some very singable songs on it. There is certainly a fair gravitas to some of the worship tracks and they will find a home in many church's circulation of regular worship. There are sure to be some here that will resonate with people. I have already heard "Songs Of The People" on the Prestonwood worship album so some songs are already working their way out into the wider church. If you give this album a listen I am sure that you will find tracks that will become part of your worship soundtrack.
