It’s been two years since much-lauded worship leader and songwriter Chris Tomlin has released a full-length CD with all-new material. Since then, he has participated in the annual worship-filled Passion events, which provided us with sneak peeks of new worship songs, and written and released a book. He also released Live From Austin Music Hall, a unique live recording.
Tomlin’s fifth project, See The Morning, is produced by Ed Cash, as was Arriving, which was released in 2004. Aiming to be a “record of hope,” as Tomlin puts it, See The Morning will most likely also rocket to the top the charts, along the lines of Arriving, for which Tomlin won numerous awards.
“There is something about the morning that awakens the God who never sleeps nor slumbers; something about the dawn that causes our God to ‘arise’ all through our history,” says Tomlin about the album. “In the scriptures, we find that God loves the morning. He loves meeting His people and displaying His glory and greatness in the morning. No matter how dark it gets, the morning will come. And the morning often brings freshness, hope and clarity.”
Musically, See the Morning is nothing groundbreaking if compared to Arriving. In general, Tomlin uses the same tried-and-true method of simple, but not bland, songwriting that is appropriate for the church. However, while most of the tracks are reminiscent of Arriving, there are a few that break the mold.
Most notably, Let God Arise turns up the volume for a distortion-filled guitar track. Glorious begins as a soft acoustic guitar song, but by the time the track closes, it is accompanied by a full band, and Tomlin’s vocals are passionate. After a lovely bridge, Glory in the Highest builds to a tremendous crescendo, only to fade out and end. The album concludes with three softer tracks, including a fantastic remake of Amazing Grace. He uses the existing strong verses and adds a chorus.
See the Morning is a strong album with solid vertically-directed lyrics, and should appeal to all of Tomlin’s previous fans, but will not necessarily attract new listeners. It is an excellent worship album and it is foreseeable that many songs will be used in the church.
Article by Darren Creech
