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Mention the phrase church camp and many an aging baby boomer’s thoughts turn wistfully to a group of friends gathered around a roaring campfire warbling merrily out of tune to acoustic guitar-led renditions of “Kum Ba Ya,” “Pass It On,” and “If I Had a Hammer.” Here in the post-modern-worship era, though, outfits like the 200+ member United youth group from the Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia, do things a bit differently. Recorded live each October at the church’s fall youth conference, the Hillsong United releases feature youth-led praise and worship perpetrated on a much grander scale.

Kicking off their seventh installment with the appropriately upbeat, U2/Delirious-tinged opener, “The Time Has Come,” the HU lads and lasses keep the energy level suitably high with the equally bracing, stadium-friendly follow-on cuts, “Take It All” and “From God Above.” Elsewhere, tracks like “Revolution” and “Kingdom Come” find the group trading its Brit-pop-meets-modern-worship leanings for a salvo of terse, barreling rhythms and frenetic lead guitar runs sure to make fans of early MTV and the men of A Flock of Seagulls exceedingly proud.

As commanding as the aforementioned cuts are, it is on the more subtle fare that the United collective really comes into its own. The intimate, acoustic pop of “From the Inside Out” recalls the venerable Hosanna Integrity releases of the past two decades. “Came to the Rescue” anchors that same classic worship sensibility to a surprisingly well-fitted modern pop underpinning. The warm, almost hushed, tones of “None But Jesus”  (“There is no one else for me/ None but Jesus”) form the perfect backdrop for its simple and wonderfully unpretentious sentiment. And moody, atmospheric interludes like “Selah” and “A Reprise” are, at once, both gripping and meditative.

To be equitable, a handful of the tracks lean a bit towards the generic. And the record bogs down slightly towards the end thanks to an overabundance of like-sounding tracks. That said, the HU cooperative balances the faster and slower material nicely and transitions seamlessly between the two. Some of the cuts might be a bit daunting, structurewise, for first-time listeners to sing comfortably in the corporate worship setting. For the most part, though, the United team navigates the narrow path between overly pedestrian and impossibly complex in splendid fashion. Hardly groundbreaking or essential, Stand is nevertheless an engaging, well-performed addition to the Hillsong United anthology sure to please fans of the first six releases.

Bert Gangl,  (04.22.06)