Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Hailing from down under and best known for his worship song Victory Chant, this very welcome new album demonstrates that Vogels is a songwriter of great ability and breadth. The album is produced by UK session drummer and former Black Peppercorn Matin Neil, who has done a great job. Musically the album will appeal to you if you like good old fashioned pop rock played by real musicians! It s never going to go out of fashion, particularly if, like Vogels, you re capable of creating the bittersweet insightful masterpieces collected here. From the cleverness of the missing word at the end of Sense In The Silence, to the biting apocalyptic wake up call of Dylan s Bells, which addresses the issues of contemporary society with as much power as anything Bob ever penned, this is a very grown up album. It isn't a pretty album either with the melancholy of Julie struggling to deal with her brokenness without a Saviour, whilst Who Am I cries out in anguish searching for meaning and identity. Woody's Manhatten takes the famous film as a metaphor of relational failure perpetrated every day across America as lovers look to psychiatrists rather than Jesus for solutions to their problems. These thoughts are further explored in Talk To Me with its observations on marital communication. This is all gritty stuff and terribly necessary. Thank God for the likes of Jo Vogels who is willing to address issues that so much of the Christian music sweeps under the carpet as it paints its sugary pictures of the blissed out Christian life. Vogels is a realist but his music is tempered with the hope of In Love Forever and Faithful God which point to a God who heals the wound ed without reducing that truth to some sort of magic wand panacea waved over the faithful. Honest and packed with integrity, Days Of Noah is a must have album but be careful, it s powerful stuff!

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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