Reviewed by Alastair McCollum

With the cry "are you ready to praise the Lord?" worship leader Freddy Rodriguez kicks off high energy, high octane worship recorded live at the Champions Centre in Las Vegas. Filled with a whole variety of styles including gospel, funk, Latin, jazz and contemporary worship this enthusiastic, faith affirming disc is held together by the theme of God's blessing on those who belong to him and by Rodriguez's firm lead. The whole album is expertly produced and beautifully arranged, the horns punching out their percussive embellishments, the guitars ringing clear and, best of all, some extremely funky drumming. The opener "We Lift Up Our Hands" and "Rejoice" are enough to lift you out of your seat and when the Latin feel kicks in on the third track "Lord You Are Amazing" it's exhilarating. A couple of tracks later the anthemic YouTube favourite "I Will Run" starts slowly and moves into a powerful and uplifting piece then hands over to a female lead singer and an R&B/gospel feel for "Fallen" which has some excellent saxophone work. The worship continues and builds over the next half-dozen songs to what is probably the "theme song" for the church titled "We Are Champions" which, despite an emphasis on being "champions, favoured and blessed" which might cause some of us more conservative types a few theological qualms, is an energetic end to a powerful worship collection.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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