Core magazine

Crea is the national youth event of the Crischona denomination in Switzerland, and this live CD from the 2006 event has a mix of English and German language worship. A wise song choice together with some nice arrangements and postproduction make this a cut above most live worship albums. The band is both powerfully and [...]

The rumours are that this is Relient K’s finest to date. Beginning with a certain west coast Brian Wilson feel, it isn’t long before we get to what this band does best. There are some hot singles here, and some fine production ideas, which have lifted the band out of their skate-rock genre and [...]

Everyone by now will have either sung a Tomlin song or bought his debut. It was that good. So how do you follow it up? Well, this second release tries very hard. There are some instant classics, (‘How can I keep’, ‘Made to worship’, ‘Awesome is’) but there are also some weaker moments with some [...]

The Mac is back, with a collection of, well, very similar material to his last few releases. If you didn’t know, Tobymac is one third of DCtalk, and as a solo artist mixes urban hip hop with gospel rock in a way only he can. The ever-present samples are here and it’s as good as [...]

Brenton Brown has produced a great debut album here. Uplifting, with plenty a memorable melody. The probability is that you have heard his songs already (Your love is amazing) or the title track (co-written with Ken Riley) recently leant to Chris Tomlin. Everlasting God is indeed a classic worship song, but this album is full [...]

We stumbled on BTT through a magazine advert, and are we glad we did! They sit somewhere between the Killers, Relient K, and various new wave offerings. But don’t let that fool you. What we have here is an original, bright quintet from Florida, with a great talent for sharp lyrics and syncopated guitar/drum stabs. [...]

What can we say about the Duke that we haven’t in our feature? (See Duke Special Live Review) Admittedly, musically he is an acquired taste, but ‘Songs ftdf’ is a living testament to the unique individuality of British songwriting. Even though this album creeps up on you with it’s eccentricity, you may not grow to [...]

Some nice cover artwork leads you into Matt’s new album, which is somewhat surprising. This is not a collection of church-ready material but a well produced release from a songwriter positioning himself as a UK solo artist with his eyes on other shores. Whether he intended that is another matter, but ‘Beautiful News’ has all [...]

Oh! Gravity is Switchfoot’s sixth recording and sees the band record with Tim Palmer (U2, Pearl Jam). Mr Palmer’s stadium rock pedigree doesn’t mean we get an album of lighter-waving arena moments, but a more diverse and ocassionally introspective collection. Sure, the Switchfoot anthems are still here in the glorious ‘Awakening’ and ‘Head over heels’, [...]

Duke Special
The Leadmill, Sheffield
My girlfriend and I don’t really do the whole Valentine’s thing. No extraordinary shows of emotion from us just because the greetings card industry dictates to us that we should. So we thought it serendipitous that Duke Special, our mutually favourite song-smith ‘du jour’, came to play in our home town on [...]