Louder Than The Music

St Aldates Worship - Until You Do (Live)

Artist:

St Aldates Worship

Title:

Until You Do (Live)

Type:

Album

Released:

19 Jul 2019

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St Aldates Worship is the worship and creative team of St Aldates Church in Oxford, UK. Led by Jamie Thomson and Lauren Harris (New Wine Worship), the creative community has attracted new songwriters such as Tom Read (formerly The Vine, Hong Kong and Worship Central) and penned songs that faithfully serve the local church but demonstrate a deep marrying of theology, poetry and accessibility- including modern classics ‘You Restore My Soul’ and ‘Gravity’.

St Aldates Church, Oxford has been a place where worship has happened for over a thousand years. In modern times St Aldates Worship have cemented a firm place...
Read More St Aldates Worship is the worship and creative team of St Aldates Church in Oxford, UK. Led by Jamie Thomson and Lauren Harris (New Wine Worship), the creative community has attracted new songwriters such as Tom Read (formerly The Vine, Hong Kong and Worship Central) and penned songs that faithfully serve the local church but demonstrate a deep marrying of theology, poetry and accessibility- including modern classics ‘You Restore My Soul’ and ‘Gravity’.

St Aldates Church, Oxford has been a place where worship has happened for over a thousand years. In modern times St Aldates Worship have cemented a firm place in the UK worship scene - not least through 2007’s pioneering Stand In Awe (led by Martyn Layzell, ‘Lost In Wonder’). Though it’s been 9 years since their last release, You: A Worship Project, a clear call from God led the community to remain hidden and develop their craft- the fruits of which matured into ‘The Annual’ project- seeing the church release a song every month via their YouTube channel throughout 2018.

Now more than ever local churches are working with their worship teams to be more creative themselves to produce songs that are more personal to the church in its time of local worship. This has led to more albums being released from the local church and I feel that has in the main produced more honest and even personal worship songs. This is clearly a great thing, but of course there are downsides to so many churches doing this. You can end up with a lot of copying, and even generic lyrics and sounds, also the quality might not be as good as it could be. Thankfully, with this release we have no such problems.

What we have here is an album full of creative and passionate praise music. The track 'Loyal In Your Love' is an epic anthem that heads more into the rock side of musical life. The song has a thumping beat and screaming praise guitars and a big, easy to pick up, chorus. This is a truly stunning song that you can see would work in the local church but also in a big conference or festival.

Other mentions have to be made to songs like 'Gravity', which has some lovely toneful guitars, 'Come Awaken Here' has a beautiful melody and a mix of 80s synths which builds into a great anthem. The song 'Raised With Christ' falls very much into the Hillsong worship style. With a steady bass and drum beat this song does so much in a short space of time. I love the middle eight of the song, it's one of the many draws of this track. "I've been raised with Christ. The old has gone the new has come to life... forever I will sing Your praise". This song is the perfect example of how congregational worship should be done - rousing and uplifting worship that you just want to join in and be a part of.

Other highlights for me personally include the atmospheric Tom Read song 'Thank You'. This is one of those songs that you just embrace and worship with. I also really really love the song 'Hiding Place' and the vocals on 'Until You Do'.

As I just said the album does tend to lean on the Bethel, Hillsong, Jesus Culture, Planetshakers side of the worship world, and yes it seems like everyone heads down that route musically when making a ‘worship’ album. Yet for me something makes this standout a bit more than the others. The only thing I can really pin point is the songs themselves. These songs have an air of passionate and soul searching honesty to them, they have not been written because they will sell well or will be the next 'big song', these songs have really been thought about, musically and lyrically, and they have soul and passion in abundance about them.

I can highly recommend this album to anybody who wants passionate worship to the full. This is not only a very passionate album, this is actually a very humbling album. It brings the worshipper to the feet of Jesus in a way that you want to be forgiven by Jesus and also want to praise him all at the same time.

Review by Jono Davies

LTTM Rating 5 Out of 5 Stars
Standout Tracks
Loyal In Your Love
Raised With Christ
Come Awaken Us

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St Aldates Worship - Until You Do (Live)

The LTTM 'Album Of The Week' is St Aldates Worship with 'Until You Do'.Title:Until You Do (Live)Artist:St Aldates WorshipReleased:19 Jul 2019Review: St Aldates Worship is the worship and creative team of St Aldates Church in…

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St Aldates Worship - Until You Do (Live)

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St Aldates Worship - Until You Do (Live)

Other St Aldates Worship Releases

Raised With Christ

Loyal In Your Love