Twelve albums deep into his career, veteran worship songwriter Matt Redman is nothing if not reliable, but Unbroken Praise is too safe an album in my opinion.
Redman’s strength is still in his lyrics, which are as focused and well-articulated as ever. His rewritten ‘It Is Well With My Soul’ is a tasteful adaptation that gets to the heart of an emotionally dense and complex hymn.
The lyricism throughout the album is cohesive and heartfelt, even if the language itself is a bit stiff – you’re unlikely to hear an original metaphor over its hour-long runtime.
Musically, too, the album retreads familiar ground. ‘King Of My Soul’ is the obligatory Mumford & Sons stomp and even its stronger moments, like the understated ‘Majesty Of The Most High’, feel recycled. In its own right Unbroken Praise is still a good album, and there’s no overstating Redman’s pioneering influence on his genre, but is he trapped within the same tropes he helped to define?
CHRIS DONALD is a music producer, filmmaker and designer
