Hillsong United

Consider this the overdose for all Hillsong United users.

Clocking in at a hefty two and a half hours, the two disc I Heart Revolution: With Hearts As One is a worship compendium like none other. And it’s an impressive one at that. Complete with 30 full songs, many clocking in at several minutes each, it’s an international worship mixtape of sorts.

For the uninformed (and shame on you, if that’s the case), Hillsong United is the only group close to touching the impact (and talent) of the Passion Worship movement. And on a global scale, they might even be ahead (if worship were a competition – humor me here).

Hillsong United is the youth ministry of Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia and their worship band has been creating CDs impacting churches globally for years now. In fact, that worldwide influence is felt all over the two discs. With each song recorded at a different location – from Seoul to Tokyo, from Mexico City to Toronto, from Budapest to Buenos Aires – it’s quite a moving thought to join in with literally people from multiple tongues and nations as you sing along.

All the favorites are here and then some. “Mighty To Save,” “Take It All,” “Nothing But The Blood,” “Salvation Is Here,” and “From The Inside Out” … well, with 30 tracks, you know they’re all here. There are two new songs present, not found on any other United album: “Love Enough” and “You’ll Come.” The former is a quick, up-tempo number similar to other fast offerings like “Take It All” and “Point of Difference.” It features a bouncing guitar before exploding into the stadium-filling chorus of “Your love it broke my fall/ It’s more than enough and I need it/ ‘Cause I’ve never known better/ And I’ll never know better.”

The latter is truly the gem of the new songs here. Written by Brooke Fraser, who also wrote the incredible “None But Jesus,” the track is a moving declaration of confidence in a God who will definitely arrive to meet his people. The song classically builds toward a final refrain that opened the song: “Chains be broken/ Lives be healed/ Eyes be opened/ Christ is revealed.”

The downsides? This compilation’s strengths are also its weaknesses. It’s simply a lot to swallow. The sheer size of the project scatters many of your favorite tracks or splits them between discs, making it almost easier to just make your own mix and discard the rest. Also, because All of the Above was the band’s first studio album, you’ve already heard all of these in this exact live format before (if you’re a fan). So while most live offerings bring that new flavor to a familiar mix, Hillsong United can’t pitch that as a reason to buy. And with a hefty collection comes a similar price. Is that justified when these songs really sound largely the same and there’s only two new tracks here?

So the make-up of a package like this is the reason you will buy it or you won’t. If you don’t have any United Live albums, then just save some money, buy this one and enjoy hours of absolutely moving music. If you already have these, I can’t say it’s worth purchasing.

Tagged as: Australia, Brooke Fraser, Hillsong Church, Hillsong United, I Heart Revolution, Passion Worship, Sydney, worship

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