This above quote is from my blog about Hillsong (all the facets of it) that I wrote way back in April 2020- the link is here. And so as we are now in 2020, November 2020 to be precise, I am able to look back at my blog post that I wrote a while ago, and really understand that yes, as polarising as Hillsong is amongst the community, their music still has weight, gravity, heart and value. This is certainly expressed all the more with the unveiling of Hillsong’s new album Take Heart (Again), where all three arms of Hillsong Music- Worship, UNITED and Y&F, all came together to create this album of 12 hits from across the years in all three formats, produced acoustically and unveiled during a time of the 2020 COVID-19 period, where live music, even some studio music, is delayed. While we as people around the world are itching to go congregate again at live music events in the future, Hillsong have unveiled to us an album to tie us over until then. Standing at 12 songs, we see the Worshp, UNITED and the Y&F incarnations, deliver powerful songs from their own personal band histories, each collaborating and collating them onto the album Take Heart (Again).
And as we stare and scan through the track-listing for the album, we see several fan-favourites and standouts, across all three formats over the years. songs like ‘Hosanna’, ‘I Surrender’, ‘Who You Say I Am’, ‘Broken Vessels’, ‘Take Heart’ and even the golden oldie ‘Eagles Wings’ are all present on this 12 track album, and what the album lacks for the length of it (personally, 12 tracks is a little too short, maybe 15-20), it makes up for with zeal, passion, enthusiasm and heart. This is a must if you are a fan of Hilslong, period, but maybe not a great place to start if you haven’t really heard of Hillsong or many of their songs. In fact, this album release may make a lot more sense after anyone who reads this review, also reads my blog on Hillsong as well. Then and only then, can you maybe appreciate a lot of the songs recorded and done here, acoustically. For Hillsong’s influence and presence around the world cannot be denied, and this new album, gathering all three facets of the band together, is what creates a great reminder, that each ‘band’ caters for their own demographic, and here on this brand new album, we see the disctinctive genres cover all these 12 songs. It is in this album where I’ve found a new-found appreciation for Hillsong, and maybe, just maybe, people can revisit some of their fan-favourite songs and be reminded that in a time of 2020 with the pandemic not slowing down anytime soon; timeless songs can often get us through even the most difficult of circumstances. And so what are we all waiting for? Time to check out songs like ‘Hosanna’, ‘I Surrender’ and ‘Who You Say I Am’, and encourage each other, that the songs of yesteryear can still be impactful today, and that sometimes a song can carry a weight to it, now years later, as it has been doing all these years. Time to listen to ‘Hosanna’ again, anyone?
