Our God Saves presented
Paul Baloche with a huge challenge: how to live up to the rock-solid precedent set by 2006's A Greater Song, his best album to date. That album revolutionized the already hefty
Baloche songbook in that it contemporized the worship veteran's approach to praise music, distancing it from the inspo-leaning offerings of colleagues
Don Moen,
Lenny LeBlanc, and
Paul Wilbur, to a more modern sound akin to
Chris Tomlin,
Matt Redman, and
Lincoln Brewster. You could say one of the precursors of modern worship finally
went modern worship. In the same spirit,
Our God Saves takes everything that worked about A Greater Song and intensifies it threefold -- it rocks harder and is more anthemic than anything
Baloche has recorded before. It only helps that the worship leader has once again called on the likes of
Redman,
Brenton Brown,
Kathryn Scott, and Glenn Packiam for songwriting assists -- they're the secret weapon to
Baloche's fierce makeover. Some of them even have guest turns on the album, adding to a live bill that's already a modern worshipper's delight no matter how you look at it. And maybe that's exactly why
Our God Saves appears to be missing something: it's such an ambitious mise en scéne that it almost feels like a worship
production, not a collection of songs for the church from the beloved worship leader. There's still plenty of material here to be implemented by local congregations --
Baloche is, after all, one of the most consistent and trusted tunesmiths in praise & worship -- but something about the grandness of
Our God Saves is bound to leave some of the more stripped-down Sunday morning guitar types out in the cold. Make no mistake: What's here is
really good by
Baloche standards, but too much of a good thing, even in worship music, can be too much. ~ Andree Farias, All Music Guide