Just a year after releasing his critically heralded national debut Awakening Hearts, worship artist Mike Lee returns with his brand new studio release, All I Need.
Produced by Cody Norris, Scott Cash and Ed Cash (whose Dove Award-winning collaborations include Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and Kari Jobe), the new EP is a more stripped-down collection than his band-driven debut, providing a glimpse into his artistic, personal and spiritual growth.
All I Need captures a tumultuous time for Lee, who spent the last year balancing touring and leading worship at his home church in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his job as a... Read More Just a year after releasing his critically heralded national debut Awakening Hearts, worship artist Mike Lee returns with his brand new studio release, All I Need.
Produced by Cody Norris, Scott Cash and Ed Cash (whose Dove Award-winning collaborations include Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and Kari Jobe), the new EP is a more stripped-down collection than his band-driven debut, providing a glimpse into his artistic, personal and spiritual growth.
All I Need captures a tumultuous time for Lee, who spent the last year balancing touring and leading worship at his home church in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his job as a mixed martial arts trainer, in addition to newfound fatherhood and a life-changing diagnosis for his own father.
“Last May we released the first project, but I wrote the title track for this EP, ‘All I Need,’ the same week,” explains Lee. “I’m not a believer in coincidence. The same day my first album came out, my dad started chemotherapy for stage four lung cancer. There I was about to start this whole new journey with music, sitting next to my father who was being strapped up with needles, and I'm just going ‘alright Lord, what are you doing?’” .
And that theme of God being all we need comes out through the album over and over again. The soft and gentle Awaken Me is such a beautiful acoustic song, I think I replayed it the moment it finished. It is a hard call to produce a whole acoustic album but Mike makes it work, each song sounds different to the next. Different doesn't sound like Come On Come On, which doesn't sound like All I Need. This can't have been an easy task, but Mike does it ever so well.
The word that keeps coming to mind with this release is beauty. The vocals and the music mix together wonderfully to create a heartwarming album that I really enjoyed. If you're looking for music that is warm on the inside and outside, whilst still dealing with the theme of God being with us everyday, then this album is one worth getting now.
Review by Jono Davies
LTTM Rating 4.5 Out of 5 Stars Standout Tracks All I Need
Different
Awaken Me