Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

Another grassroots worship team, this time from the Exeter Vineyard in glorious Devon, has ventured into the big bad world of Christian music, and offers this 12 track CD featuring seven self-penned items in its 48 minutes-plus run time. Sadly, I found the in house material only fair to middling, suffering from ordinary hook-free melodies, lyrics that mostly cover familiar ground and occasionally messy production. The covers include "Be Thou My Vision" - yes, another one. I strongly urge any worship group that wants to do a version of this lovely old hymn to listen to Wayne Drain's thunderous Celtic/native American opus on his 1997 album 'Come Away' (or if you're feeling reflective, Robin Mark's gentler reading on the Mandate 1998 live album), and then forget all about it. There's a cover of Jarrod Cooper's "King Of Kings, Majesty", which suffers from some loud electric guitar; also Rob Hayward's "I'm Accepted, I'm Forgiven" - hardly up to date worship material, I first heard that one at the end of the '80s - and a hot axe laden apocalyptic anthem "Warrior", which is not the sort of thing that's likely to make the overhead projector in your local church worship service. To be honest, on the evidence of this CD, the Exeter Vineyard need to get some work into their singing and songwriting, and find a worship leader with a strong, accurate voice, because worship teams stand or fall (in radio airplay terms) on the quality of their material and of their performances. Sorry guys, I don't think you were quite ready for this.

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