The Rock Worship “Only By Your Grace” Album Review

Prime Cuts:  Only By Your Grace, We Look to You, We Crown You King

EDM (Electronic Dance Music) has laid an enormous claim on worship music.  Progressively, worship teams such as Hillsong Young and Free, Bethel Music, and others have all adorned their releases with swirling disco-generated beats and sampled rhythmic patterns.  On a cursory level, such a move has certain put worship music on par with the latest music from secular artists such as Calvin Harris, David Guetta and Robin Schulz.  But such technical gloss has also distracted worship music from the genre's primary purpose.  If worship music is created to service the church by providing her with fresh and new soundtracks for her worship, how on earth can smaller churches replicate such EDM-driven music every Sunday morning?  Some churches are already struggling each week to find a pianist, where can such churches find the technical competencies to perform such beat-driven music? 

This is where Rock Worship's latest release Only By Your Grace comes in.  Rock Worship as the team's titular suggests eschews the steely gloss of EDM-induced worship in favour of worship music that is more organic, simpler in its execution. Their music harkens back to the earlier Hillsong worship days where worship was more guitar rather than computer driven.  Only By Your Grace is a live recording of all original songs from the team under the leadership of worship pastor, David Dirmann. The Rock Worship is the worship team coming out of The Rock Church which was launched in Anaheim, California in the year 2000. What started in one small room is now a church with many congregations and languages and a discipleship program that reaches literally all around the world.

With its jaunty electric guitar and an 80s-sounding rock underpinnings, "Imagine Love" is the perfect opener for a worship set.  Engaging with lots of cool "ooh oohs," "Imagine Love" gives expression to Jesus' love from His incarnation to His Cross.  If you want congregants to enter into worship rather than just stare into boredom like zombies, "Freedom is Here" is the song to do it.  Calling to mind Hillsong Worship's "Salvation is Here," "Freedom is Here" is hook laden call to celebrate the liberty that comes via the Cross of Jesus Christ.  Featuring some sublime guitar riffs, "The Joy" has a warm timbre to the song that intrinsically draws us closer to the Savior.

The buzz song of the record has to be "We Look to You."  A gorgeous power ballad with a soaring crescendo, this worship song brings us into God's throne room where our only appropriate response is simply to cry "Holy, Holy, Holy."  You can't go wrong with songs that expound on God's grace.  The title cut "Only By Grace" is not exempted either.  However, one quibble that needs to be elucidated is that though many of the songs are worshipfully executed, there are some that lack depth in the lyrical department.  "We Look to You," for instance, though it does speak of the holiness of God, one would wish the team would have gone deeper to show how the holiness of God changes us.  The redeeming song here is "We Crown You King:" here the team gives new dimension to the hymn "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name."

If you are looking for worship that is organic, exuding a warm accoutrement over heartfelt deliveries, give the Rock Worship's latest Dream Worship Records release a spin.  

 

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