Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

It's fashionable to be scathing about kid's praise and worship music, mainly due to the gruesome horrors foisted on us from the USA over the last few years. The antidote to all that shlock now seems to be at hand; two albums with 40 songs written by some of the best in the business; Ishmael, Captain Alan Price, Sammy Horner, Doug Horley, Jim Bailey and Rich Hubbard are all here; along with a few "adult" songwriters, notably Ian White, Eden's Bridge, Matt Redman, Noel Richards and Martin Smith, and a few older items ('Amazing Grace', 'Lord I Lift Your Name On High' etc) thrown in. A songbook, compiled by Capt Alan, of over 400 kids' songs is due out soon, and the idea behind these CDs is not to marvel at the performances, which, if truth be told, are rather ordinary vocally and instrumentally, but to use them to help the kiddywinkers learn the songs. So we get the music in split trax format, which is a bit disconcerting if listening on headphones, but is a useful to teach and then perform them. The only quibble is that most of the songs are on the short side - 'The Happy Song' gets chopped to two minutes, and 'There Is Power In The Name Of Jesus' checks out at 1 minute 55 seconds, so if using them as DIY karaoke, it means a lot of stopping and starting. Apart from that caveat, these would make useful tools to teach your Sunday School class good songs, just as long as you don't expect Dove Award-winning singing and playing.

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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