Review
Audio Adrenaline has consistently delivered relevant music for the youth culture over the last ten years and their seventh album 'Lift' is more wonderful and uplifting than ever. The album takes a more praise and worship approach than previous albums and also tackles a more straight-forward outlook music-wise than previous more experimental releases. This is the best bits of rock over recent years mixed into one stunning album.
'You Still Amaze Me' gets the album off to a great start beginning with an edgy build-up that opens to a fast, flowing rock rhythm with a great distortion sound and some great guitar effects. The title is pretty clear, and the words are full of worship - 'You still amaze me / Bigger than the sky / Brighter than the sun / I'm only thrilled by You.'
'I'm Alive' is the next track with a repeated solitary guitar note ringing before the rest of the instruments push with full impact of the main melody of the song. The majority of the instruments yield for the verses, which offers some interesting arrangements such as rumbling drums, electronic whistling effects and strange vocal effects. The music during the verses builds up to the chorus, where the full impact of the instruments and the main melody from the start return. A short, gentle bridge gives a breather before building up again to the final chorus. This is a great fun track, one that will be fantastic to see done live.
'Beautiful' makes two appearances on this album (the second being the bonus remix) and is probably the most famous track from this album, since it was the first radio single and featured on the popular WoW Hits series. The track is all about the beauty of Christ - how for those who get to know Him, He is everything. It is echoed in the words 'When I lift You up they come running / When I sing Your song the world's turning to You / Just the sound of Your name is a beautiful thing / I love You, I love You, I love You.' It is a catchy worship track that doesn't give you much of an idea of the rest of this album, despite being the single. It's more of a pop track like the much-loved Newsboys would do, rather than the other heavier rock tracks. Having said that, track five 'Rejoice' is similar but takes on a more rock aspect than 'Beautiful.' A cool, funky guitar melody mixed with bouncing drums and some strange electronic effects makes this an extremely fun worship track. The track cleverly mixes serious, meaningful lyrics about how we should tell everyone about what God has done, with an upbeat and lively rhythm.
In between 'Beautiful' and 'Rejoice' is 'Ocean Floor,' a fantastic ballad-like rock track. A colourful and powerful electric guitar starts the track before the bass and drums slowly kick in. The music is enjoyable and the vocals are full of praise. This stunning track is based upon the fact that if we are a Christian, our past sins do not chain us down: 'They're all behind you / They'll never find you / They're on the ocean floor / Your sins are forgotten / They're on the bottom / Of the ocean floor.'
Tracks six and seven following 'Rejoice' are average tunes, nothing special. 'Speak To Me' starts with a gentle acoustic guitar with an anxious mood which builds up to a more cheerful slow rock track, reflecting how the thoughts created in the words change. The track wrestles with how as Christians we need the help of Jesus Christ - we need Him to speak to us to help us through our life's problems. 'Glory' is another complete worship track and perhaps is the only track on this album that a fault can be found with some of the lyrics not quite following with the music. The words are easy to understand 'To sing glory, to sing glory / And I can't find the words to say / Life gets in the way / Lord, You know my heart's desire.'
'Summertime' is track eight, a heavier, fast, surging rock track with an excellent sound. Beginning with a stop-start rhythm, the tune soon launches into a swift, breath-taking verse which matches the lyrics 'I want to play all day' and the summertime feeling of this song. The intro for the chorus features the stop-start rhythm that started this song before the exciting rollercoaster chorus melody begins. 'Feels like summertime / I never want to leave this place / But if I can't go now / I know someday, somehow' goes the chorus, which for those who haven't gathered is speaking about Heaven. The second verses stresses that this track is speaking about Heaven but it is all written very cleverly in this superb song.
'This Is Everything' is another standard album track with a gentle passing rock rhythm, full of thought and reflection. The track wrestles with how all our dreams, hopes and desires are nothing - what we have in Christ is everything. All things in our lives are at God's command, not of our own doing. The track doesn't stand out on this album with so many other great tracks so make sure you don't just let this one play along in the background, it is a good song.
The title track 'Lift' is next and you can easily see why the album was named for it. After the gentle synthesiser effect intro, rich, colourful and pleasant guitars join and the sound is excellent. The song glides gracefully along with great ease and is probably the best track on this fantastic album. The words are full of praise: 'Count them, every one / All of the million things You've done / You are the Lord of my life.' This song really sums up what the whole album is about, lifting the name of Jesus Christ and totally praising God.
'Tremble' is next, which is more like an ending track to this album, which if not for the bonus tracks would be the case. The music is fairly dull but the words are again full of worship speaking about how we are nothing compared with God and how great He is. The track is the longest on the album, nearly reaching eight minutes but to be honest, the last three minutes are just background synthesiser effects that again point out that this was going to be the last track on the album.
The last two bonus tracks don't add anything to this incredible album but just give you something extra to listen to. The radio remix of 'Beautiful' only varies slightly from the actual version of 'Beautiful' with different mixing of the instruments. In fact, you only really notice the difference at the very beginning. Nevertheless, you get to listen to a great track again without having to press the replay button. 'Lonely Man' is the other bonus track and is taken from the demo sessions. It's a heavy mix with a good guitar riff but this track could have been so much better if they had worked on this track to perfect it for the actual album.
If you have never heard anything by Audio Adrenaline then there is no better time with the release of their best album so far. They have gone for a more standard approach on this album, taking the best aspects of rock music of recent times and created their own songs instead of trying to be innovative but it has certainly worked to their advantage and to their fans advantage. This album is not one to miss and fans of the extremely popular bands such as the Newsboys, Delirious and dc Talk should find this a superb album.
Album Rating:
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