Review Detail
Need - Todd Agnew
Ardent Records
WL Quick Tip: Need
has songs for your service, featured music and songs for personal listening. Don't miss this one. It is a best of the best. Todd Agnew, one of the most refreshing voices in music, is back with
Need, replete with personal and congregational worship, prayer and reflection and even something for your choir-it helps if they've got soul-(check out "Higher Ground" and "Jesus, the Hope of Glory"). A master at blending genres-all things rootsy and rock (classic, alt, southern), blues, gospel, funk, and country-he wears them like a glove. The perfectly imperfect edge, the fall and rise of his music have a primal quality.
"Joy Unspeakable" is just one of eight of the album's 12 tracks that adapt, resurrect or take off on of some of the best of the best classic hymns by some of the Churches most renowned writers. Agnew also creates a classic of his own with "Jesus, The Hope of Glory." His transparent longing for God's direction on "Written on the Wall" and his questioning on "Did You Mean Me" are perfect sung prayer. On "Breakable," he combines Christ's birth and death for a rockin' Christmas/Easter/or anytime worship song. Fanny Crosby provides lyrics for two of Agnew's songs; "Give me Jesus" is country and "Tell Me the Story" ain't never been this funky. In a different vein, "Deep Love of Jesus" gives Jerry Lee Lewis classic rock a spin.
In the end, it's clear that Agnew treats each song with loving care. Each arrangement has a personality, a voice. Although there is plenty of energetic drum slamming, turn-up-the-volume fare, Agnew doesn't wear you out with constant decibels, but places songs in a flow that provides time to rest and reflect in the midst of celebration, praise and worship; and his transitions within songs are brilliant. Bible teacher Marva Dawn has reflected that Psalm 96 tells us to sing a new song, yet Psalm 96 actually quotes and old psalm. Todd has tapped into the art and heart of this important aspect of New Song and we are the beneficiaries.
PlAYLIST: All, but especially "Did You Mean Me?" "Jesus the Hope of Glory," "Tell Me the Story" "The Love of God," and "Deep Love of Jesus"
toddagnew.com - Andrea Hunter
