Review

Old meets new. This is the best way to describe "God He Reigns", the 14th live CD from Hillsong Music Australia. Hillsong has spent their last few live CDs slowly integrating the youthful energy and music of younger Hillsong worship leaders like Joel Houston and Marty Samson with the distinctive Hillsong sound already established by Darlene Zschech, Reuben Morgan and others. Like with any time of transition, this blending of old and new Hillsong made for a couple of inconsistent sounding moments in some of their more recent CDs. But this is not the case with "God He Reigns" which signals the successful merging of two generations of Hillsong worship.

"God He Reigns" is without a doubt Hillsong's strongest and most relevant CD in a few years. The 14-song CD starts out with a bang with "Let Creation Sing" a song penned by Reuben Morgan, and continues right into "Salvation Is Here" which stays true to the original arrangement from Hillsong United's "Look To You" CD. These songs are fresh and of course full of Hillsong energy. I'm especially fond of track three, "His Love" which is a great example of the power of this "blended" Hillsong sound with its driving drums and guitar coupled with Zschech's lead vocal and a tasteful horn section.

Hillsong is clearly poised to continue appealing to the next generation of worshipers but as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. "God He Reigns" is also full of great slow songs that are reminiscent of the "God Is In The House" and "All Things Are Possible" days. To get a better idea, check out the sound clips for "God He Reigns", "Let Us Adore" and "Know You More." As with every Hillsong CD, most worship teams will be able to find at least a couple of usable songs for their worship sets.

To those who, for whatever reason, might think that Hillsong is not cutting-edge enough these days, I say give "God He Reigns" a listen. I would say the same thing to those who think that Hillsong have wandered too far from their original sound. This CD definitely goes on my "Personal Top Three Favorite Hillsong CDs So Far" list. If "God He Reigns" is any indication, we can continue looking forward to more great worship music from Hillsong in the future.

Review by Jeremy Dunn