Woohoo! My first review after flamepillar trusted me! This is for you FP and GP!

Please leave any comments about this review. I’m always looking to improve my style or to just discuss! Thanks!

Yes, I’m a sellout…

I have my personal gripes about the entire worship gig that the evangelical church has been finding itself in. In a previous review, I’ve mentioned how it’s been bothering to me that almost every Christian group that I could think off has been creating their own worship albums. It’s as though it’s become a rite of passage now for all the seasoned veterans of Christian Contemporary music. First the Christmas album guys, then we do the worship album where we lift Jesus up on high. Oy…

However, when I heard that the City on a Hill creators were planning to come out with a second album, I found myself torn. For one thing, if you’ve read my review on City On A Hill: Songs of Worship & Praise, then you’ll know that I ADORED the album! It knocked me off my feet literally musically as they had so many great original songs of worship. There were a few bumps here and there, such as TOO MUCH REVERB on one or two of the songs. So when City on a Hill (COAH): Sing Alleluia was announced, man was I excited.

I was also very suspicious about the second release though. This would not be the first time that a sequel was made because of the great success of the originator. I feared that COAH: Sing Alleluia would be a horrible album with all the same artists, but done as a rush job so that Essential Records could squeeze some more cash out of us naïve Christians listeners. It was also not helpful that you had these Christian music sites reviewing the CD and saying that it’s great. Like what else could they say?! They want to sell the CD so they obviously want to make it sound great!


Boy was I wrong…

First thing off, I decided that I was gonna pre-order this CD. Not only did I get this CD at a great discounted price (Try 11 bucks people!), but I would get it right on the day when it was released! I thought that if this CD was bad, then at least I could write a review on epinions to warn people and stay away from it. Heh, maybe even start a boycott on this record for just the blatant misuse of us loyal listeners… Glad I was wrong eh?

I’ve been listening to this CD straight through for the past couple of days. At first, I guessed my ears had the cynical buzz on, so I didn’t really hear anything special at first. However, for some reason on Saturday morning, the buzz disappeared and I began to really listen to the music. All I can say is, in my opinion, this CD has surpassed its predecessor!


A sequel better than the original?! Huh?!

I was really surprised, that’s the only way I could describe it. The album is extremely solid. The creators and the bands purposely came together and made sure that this album wouldn’t just be a slapstick worship album. There was a purpose and it’s reflected by the fact that the album’s title is Sing Alleluia. The significance is, unlike the first album where they just sang songs that overall worshipped and praised God, Sing Alleluia was centered on one specific theme: All of Creation bowing down before the Creator. The idea was taken from the words of St. Francis of Assisi. Legend has it that wherever he was present, the creatures such as birds, would just begin to sing songs of praise to our God. Now, I’m not very into those type of ideas and legends, but the truth does speak to me. All of creation was designed to worship our Maker, thus that’s why I’ve really come to love this album and its message.

Every song in this album had that theme flowing through the lyrics. The music was tight, the singers’ voices were nearly perfect and the instrumentals were on their marks. It seemed that they tried very hard to not attempt to recreate the God Of Wonders success, instead they choice a totally different path and came out with an album that is on equal footing and at some moments, higherfooting.


Song Reviews: This is where I get really long-winded

All Creatures Of Our God And King - As we start off, we are introduced with a slow, soothing organ playing. This is one of the shortest songs on the album as this and the last song are really just the artists singing portions of the hymn that St. Francis wrote. In this portion, all the gals from the project came and sang together. It really helps open the album to the theme and it really helps paint the picture of creation singing to our God. Wow!

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing
Alleluia, alleluia!


Sing Alleluia - There are so many things I could mentioned about the first real song on the album! Let me start off saying that this is no God Of Wonders. The only similar element to this first song and God Of Wonders is that Mac Powell of Third Day sang on this too. However, this time he isn’t the lead singer. The lead singer is Jennifer Knapp. I’m not sure if she’s an artist on the Essential Record label or if she is just appearing out of courtesy, but it was awesome just listening to her on this song.

We have a slow acoustic intro and a steady drum beat. As the song progresses we have more instruments appearing. Eventually through the rest of the song, the acoustic is replaced with an electric playing, but the guitars are no longer the lead instruments. The two main instruments one can hear through the rest of the song are the drums and a tambourine. This reminds me of what spontaneous worship is like a lot of times. Several times in the Bible, people would just pick up their tambourines and begin singing and dancing before God. As the song process and reaches near the end, the tambourine becomes more and more prominent in the song. I don’t think that was an accident, but it directly impacted the message of the song.

The song is just a pure praise song that commands all of creation to worship our God and King. This isn’t an idea being suggested, we are simply told that we ought to worship God because He is our God and King. The Creator of all life and the giver of all good things. Who would not want to praise a God who is so merciful and wonderfully beyond description?!

One last thing, Mac Powell & Jennifer Knapp sound incredible on this album. It was awesome to hear them sing the bridge together with their respective parts. Neither one of them overpowered each other, it was just equal footing for these two great worshipers. I truly appreciated how Mac Powell’s voice was incorporated with an airy reverb to make him sound like he was singing on a mountain. It was the right touch of reverb.

O praise Him (when the morning comes)
Alleluia (for the rising sun)
O Praise Him (when the day is done)
Alleluia (praise the Lord of love)


Holy Is Your Name - As the drumbeats from Sing Alleluia fades off, we are greeted with a drumbeat, tambourine, and an electric. This song reminds me of Unified from the first COAH project, but the music is whole lot richer on this one. The electric work is awesome too! It’s one of those moments when your ears just tickle with the sound of the electric! This song, like the previous, also has the tambourine placed in a prominent place in the song. When we hit the last go-around of the chorus, the tambourine is just shaking like nuts!

The vocalists are Bebo Norman, Cliff & Danielle Young (Caedmon’s Call). All three sound awesome! I’ve never heard of Bebo, but his low and raspy voice really gives this song a nice touch. Again, neither of these singers overpowered each other. Rather they combine their vocal talents into a choir that just focuses on one object of worship. It’s really encouraging to hear the interdependence each singer had on the other two.

Another thing I have noticed is that it appears the artists that are new to the COAH project are given the reigns of being the lead singers. Mac Powell did that with Jennifer Knapp, Cliff & Danielle did the same with Bebo. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but it really makes some interesting discussion.

As you might have guessed from the title, Holy is Your Name, is another praise song. It’s more a love song to God as the singers declare how great His Love is to them. He’s the Lord of all creation because they acknowledge that he did “scatter the stars across the heavens”, but his love is also a shelter for us. For those reasons alone, that is why His Name is be lifted up high because it is indeed holy.

Now I want to say
Holy is Your Name
Let all creation proclaim
Holy is Your Name


You Are Holy - As you might have already realized, we have a strong emphasis on His Holiness and His Right as the Ruler of the Universe. We continue with this theme in You Are Holy.

You are Holy takes us in a different direction as it uses a slow drumbeat, acoustic, tambourine, but with a much slower tempo. This song is more meditative as the mental imagery is of being on a mountain peak looking out towards the land. The singer, Nicole Nordeman, really uses her vocal talent here beautifully. She really conveys the feel of a little child singing to her Daddy. Her voice is very sweet sounding, the only way I can really describe it well is think of a teenager Michelle Tumes.

You Are Holy is more of a hymnal, maybe even a psalm like song. It’s very simple, and it’s point is to glorify the Triune God. Every person of the Godhead is mentioned and praised. First the Father, then the Son, and finally the Holy Spirit. Each Person is given their moment of specific worship, and then it comes back to worshipping all Three as One. To me, that’s pretty kicking!

Praise Father God
Giver of life…
Praise to the Son
The living Christ…
Praise Holy Ghost
Voice in the dark…


Our Great God - We now begin to move away from focusing on just the Holiness of God, but now onto His Greatness. Our Great God uses a similar convention from Third Day’s Your Love O Lord song. This kind of makes sense as Mac Powell is one of the singers on this song. The other singer is Fernando Ortega. They combine their writing talents and came out with another hymnal like song.

As before, we have an electric, tambourine, bass and drums. The interesting throw in is we have Fernando Ortega playing an accordion in the song. Don’t worry, that doesn’t come in until the last part of the song. You probably would miss it too as it is more of a background sound instead of a front instrument. Overall, the tempo is fitting as the words display the desire for God’s people to really think about how great our God is.

Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God!


Marvelous Light - If this song looks familiar, then you’re suspicion isn’t wrong. Marvelous Light was on the first COAH CD, but it was near the end of the album AND it was only the chorus that was sang. Here, we are treated with the full version. Naturally, there will be some major differences between both versions.

Here, we have two singers instead of the chorus from the first project. Derek Webb of Caedmon’s Call & Sandra McCracken (I don’t know who she is) are the lead vocalists. We also are given more instruments, such as drums, electrics, on this version. The tempo is modestly faster than the 1st version and obviously we have more lyrics.

Marvelous Light is basically a song that declares that Jesus is the light of world. Without Him, we would be wandering in the valleys, stumbling, blind and with no hope. It's a very simple message for a very simple song.

You are the Light of the World (Jesus is the Light)…


The Comforter Has Come - We’ve finally come to the only Jars Of Clay (JOC) song on the album. Yup, those crazy kids are back again for this album and lend their talents to the project.

The words of the song came from this guy named Frank Bottone, but JOC supplied the music for it. JOC goes with a very country-folksy sound with this song. It honestly reminds me of something that Caedmon’s Call would do, but it does have the touch of JOC behind it.

The gist of the song is about the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. It’s a simple praise song that focuses on giving thanks to the fact that the Comforter has come to indwell in every person who has called on the name of Jesus.

The long night has past,
The morning breaks at last
…The Comforter has come


Shine Your Light - This is one of my favorite songs from this album most positively. It’s great that after all this talk about God’s greatness, holiness, love, that we hit a song that tells us what we are to do with this knowledge. Basically, why are we not going out to the world and telling them about out great God?! It’s kinda ironic that the lyrics are pretty convicting, but the music brings a flood of light to bring hope to the listener. The end result is a convicting and encouraging message of telling others about the water we have found!

The singers and the instrumental arrangements are done by Nichole Nordeman and FFH. They really made a great team as we have FFH’s cool harmonies and their instrumental talents mixed in with Nichole’s beautiful voice. I really also enjoyed the simple intro with a strumming acoustic, one drumbeat, and hints of the electric. Mixed that with just Nichole singing made this song really fun to listen and move to. They created a really good groove as I played, so much so that I found my waist and head moving with beat. It also has a similar intro beat to Holy Is Your Name, but it is definitely something you can move your waist to.

Go and tell
Go and bring them water from a different well
Runnin’ with your candle into the blackest night
To be salt and light
To the wide , wide world…
When you live in a city on a hill…


Hide Me In Your Heart - We finally hit a song done just by FFH. We first hear a brief moment of strings with a strumming acoustic. However, as with FFH songs, we hear all of the instruments which include the bass, drums, and tambourine. All the vocalists, with Jeromy Deibler leading the way, sound as good as always! The tempo is paced well, not too fast, but this song is definitely not a slow ballad.

Hide Me In Your Heart is a song about coming to our Savoir as our refuge. When the storms of life comes and everything just seems to be falling apart, we are not left with no home or hiding place. That place is in His Heart, thus the song is a prayer song where the singers call out to Jesus to be their shelter in the midst of the troubles of life.

Hide me in Your heart, O Lord
Hold me in your arms
Still the wind and calm the storm
Hide me in Your heart


Hallowed - Jennifer Knapp comes on with her adapted version of the Lord’s Prayer. She uses just her voice and guitar for the entire piece. As she recites the Lord’s Prayer, one can feel the emotion that is coming out of it. It’s a quiet, meditative song on the fact that our Lord is totally other and that throughout the song His Name is be revered. It’s a very simple concept with a simple arrangement.

Our Father which art in Heaven
Hallowed by Thy Name
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
Hallowed, hallowed


Life Up Your Hearts - As we near the end of this album, we are met with a simple responsive reading type song. If you know what responsive reading is, it’s when one person would say a phrase, and then the congregation will respond with another line. For example:

Leader: God is Good
People: All the time

Well, that’s what’s basically going on in this simple 2-minute song. We have one of the members of the Choir command the people to give thanks to Lord our God. Not a very complicated concept and the instrumental arrangement is as simple as can be. We get a flute, tambourine, and acoustic. I honestly thought this was a quaint little song.

Life up your hearts
(We lift them to the Lord)
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
(It is right to give Him thanks and praise)


Communion - As we listen to the last song before the closing of the album, we have Cliff and Danielle come back with Phil Keaggy! It’s nice to have after all the varying styles and tempos from all the praise songs, we end with a celebratory song! And yes, it’s about communion!

We get everything here, acoustic, electric, drums, bass all working in harmony and with synergy! This song can be seen as both as a praise and a contemporary song. I could very so imagine seeing this song on the next Caedmon’s Call CD as it is very much their style. The electric work again tickled my ears. Cliff takes lead and as always he does a superb job in singing. Danielle supporting him with the moments when Phil Keaggy broke in made the vocals sound wonderful. Besides that, you just have to listen to the words, it really gets the point home about the very sacrifice our Savoir.

Let us break the bread of life
Together take the cup of salvation
The body and the blood of Christ
Communion, holy Communion


All Creatures Of Our God And King: Part 2 - For the first 30 seconds, we have Phil Keaggy singing the chorus of Communion with him slowly strumming his acoustic. Then he fades out and the organ comes in from the start of the album.

This time, instead of just the females, we have ALL the singers coming together to sing another part of St. Francis’ song. It’s a fitting end to an album that started off with his song. I loved the final touch when they actually add in the sound of birds chirping away with a church bell ringing in the background.

Let all things their Creator bless
And worship Him in humbleness
O praise Him, alleluia!


Closing thoughts

So yes, I totally enjoyed this album. Things that were just great:

-They had a theme that ran throughout the whole album
-The theme was a great concept: Creation bowing before Him!
-Many of the big-time hitters took a back seat to the newcomers
-Excellent instrumental work. Laid down some great grooves!
-The singers were just marvelous.

Another thing I think that helped me really love this album was what happened to me as I was riding the train back home. As I was listening to Sing Alleluia, I looked out the window and saw the sun setting over the water in Cambridge. I immediately got off at the next stop and just went to a pedestrian bridge and with this CD playing, just admired and awe-struck by God’s handiwork. Corny? I guess so, but the moment was just amazing and that’s when the whole Creator truth clicked for me.

I would definitely encourage you to get this album and just enjoy the music. It has encouraged my heart to worship God even more so from my heart and as in Shine Your Light, I want to tell as many people of what a great God He is. He’s my Father in Heaven, the Creator of the Universe, but He is still my Daddy! How awesome is that?! ALLELUIA!


Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving