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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tim Hughes - not at his best, but still a gem, May 15, 2007
This is Tim Hughes' third major release, and probably the most highly anticipated one to date. He has become known for such church favourites as Here I Am to Worship, Beautiful One, and more. Would this CD live up to the success of his previous efforts? The answer, in a word, is yes. But in several other words, here are my feelings about this release.
I have always loved Tim Hughes' lyrics more than anything. He finds ways to bring the praise, but also to dialogue with God. He expresses his own weakness and humanness, and also his inability to follow God's commands without His own help. I love it!
This release is no different, in that his lyrics come through strong, especially in songs like God of Justice, Clinging to the Cross, and Take the World. Musically, it is obvious that he has been influenced by Hillsong (he even admits that he wrote several songs while down in Australia with the Hillsong crew). I'm not terribly fond of that aspect of the new CD, but I am willing to overlook it. This CD "rocks out" a little more than his other releases, and I like it.
Standout songs include Happy Day, Clinging to the Cross (beautiful duet), and God of Justice. One last minor critique of the CD: he tends to use a similar pattern in many songs, of repeating one line over and over towards the end of the song, starting softly, but steadily intensifying with each repetition. It sounds great, but just happens too often for my liking.
Overall this is a solid release, and will get a lot of playing time along with the first two releases. If you have never heard of Tim Hughes, you need to listen to the song samples here (especially songs 1, 5, and 7) and then purchase it!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty good for Tim's 3rd album, April 28, 2007
I am a huge fan of Tim Hughes and absolutely adore him as a worship leader and love his first two albums (Here I am to Worship & When Silence Falls). The third album is good but not great and I think it misses the mark. Being more influenced by Delirious, I think this album just tries to hard to sound cool and lacks the sincerity of the first two albums in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, there are great songs like "Clinging on the Cross" but I think Tim could have done much better. Just my 2 cents...
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hughes does it again... but I don't want Nashville to domesticate him, May 12, 2007
This is an excellent recording. While I prefer live versions of Hughes' material (similar to Redman's), Holding Nothing Back is a solid follow-up to When Silence Falls. Personally, I feel When Silence Falls is a little stronger for a worship pastor or leader in terms of congregational accessibility, but there are a couple of real gems on this album. "Everything," "Clinging to the Cross" and "God of Justice" are phenominal songs. The end of "God of Justice" is worth the price of the recording itself. I love the emphasis on Micah 6:8. The end of the song appears to be just spontaneous praise.
That being said, I fear that Hughes could get a little domesticated the more he works in Christian-music dominated environments. The raw passion, and electric and percussion driven songs on the majority of the Soul Survivor CDs seem to be tamed by Bannister Brown-esque overdubs on this recording (hence the 4 versus 5 stars).
Nonetheless, the God-glorifying songwriting and passion are still evident on this recording. And it stands out among the wasteland of several American modern worship songwriters trying to mimic English accents.
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