I have to admit it has been some time since I have heard a release from The Message Trust, but I am very familiar with a couple of the ministries that have been born out of this passionate engagement with culture.
Being a teenager in the 90’s I fondly remember “The World Wide Message Tribe” which came out of this organisation and I believe I still have a copy of “We Don’t Get What We Deserve”. I am also familiar with the guys from LZ7 and indeed have met them a few times!
So using this as a basis I thought I knew what I was going to get with this album – I got something so different and that’s not a bad thing!
On the basis of the intro you might think that this was going to be something like an LZ7 release. There are guitars screaming and a voice asking “Can you hear the drums?”, this runs into the first track which is surprisingly just a good praise song.
If I was asked to share my thoughts immediately about this album I would say that it was a lot more mellow than I was expecting!
This is a collection of modern praise and worship coming from the creativity of various people involved with The Message Trust.
This is certainly not a showcase album for promotion of the various artists, the only name I recognised in the credits were the fantastic Rivers and Robots who have a track on here. If you were expecting Lynz and friends then you might be a little disappointed. This is a live worship recording and as such there are some crowd sounds, just enough to remind you that it is live.
The structure of having the spoken word tracks interspersed between the sections of the album serve to ground this album in the aims and views of the trust. They are surprisingly good, sometimes the spoken word suffers from a heavy-handed approach but I really liked these ones. They are full of passion and down-to-earth, talking not just about the spiritual battles but the physical challenges that the trust must encounter on a daily basis.
Overall this a great collection of tracks that have the power to call you to worship, encourage a depth of lifestyle and go into the world – as is our calling as Christians.
If you are looking for something different, that really has a message for you where you are in your walk then this is an excellent album to go for!
Click link to purchase ‘The Message In A Bottle: Jesus, The One Who Saves’ from The Message or digital via iTunes.
Review by One Man In The Middle
