Chris Tomlin - a Review of The Phantom Tollbooth

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The Noise We Make
Artist: Chris Tomlin
Label: sixstepsrecords
Length: 10 tracks/50:42

This Is Our God

From the first guitar chords and drumbeats, Chris Tomlin’s The Noise We Make will make you sit up and take notice. One might even be tempted to do a double-take on the CD cover to make sure it is the right CD. A question forms in the listener’s mind, “This is praise and worship?” Nevertheless, from the title track opener through the final song, it is praise and worship all the way. While upbeat rocker “The Noise We Make” stretches some boundaries musically, Tomlin returns to a “more traditional contemporary worship” sound, if that’s not an oxymoron, on the subsequent tracks. He even draws from the “Kentucky hills” sound
of Steven Curtis Chapman on “Captured” and his version of Delirious?'s “The Happy Song.”

Chris Tomlin may be familiar to those who know him from the Passion college worship CDs Better Is One Day and The Road To One Day. Combining talented musicians, skilled songwriting, and a true heart for glorifying God, Tomlin’s music is adept at focusing the listener on things above. Production values are high, and the style is more similar to “artist/worship leader” projects such as those from Darrell Evans (especially on “Be Glorified”) than it is to congregational collections proffered from Vineyard and Hosanna!, but worship leaders will still find a few gems to introduce to their churches. “America” is an anthemic tune that cries out for forgiveness for the land, while “Forever” and “Kindness” are good congregational songs.

Highlights such as the title track, “This Is Our God,” and “The Wonderful Cross”-a beautiful, semi-traditional version of the classic hymn “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross” with some creative embellishments-set The Noise We Make apart as a professional, well-produced project suitable for personal worship times and group settings.

Zik Jackson 2/17/2001
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