That's Fresh September Issue | Page 26

Champion

An Album Review

By D. Conner Kirschner

Stream five of the songs through their YouTube channel or Jesus Culture’s for free before you buy their album, and let’s just be real: ain’t no college student got the money to spend on music. That being said, this review is solely on the songs World of Grace, Mountain, Champion, High Above, and Let There Be Light, the songs on their playlists.

On this one, Bryan and Katie steer to a more contemporary sound than their 2013 album Kingdom Come. The first two songs on their YouTube playlist, World of Grace and Mountain, are just lyric music videos. World of Grace is honestly very soothing compared to the rest of the Album, a song I’d love to fall asleep to, however it’s anything but boring. This album is titled Champion for a reason, all the songs (so far as are on this playlist) are about Jesus, our Champion, and also sung to Him. Each song invites the listener to an encounter with Jesus, and it might just be me but that’s like, super cool. And for that matter, the majority of Bethel Music’s work is like this. For those of you who don’t know, Bryan and Katie are actually a part of the Bethel Music Collective; a collective of artist from across the world who have a passion to see Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven

established on this earth just like it is in the supernatural realm.

Mountain comes after, with a more contemporary feel to it that characterizes the rest of this playlist. The rest have not just a lyric music video, but also an acoustic music video, a music video and a song story video. These are Champion, High Above, and Let There Be Light. The variety for each of these songs is very refreshing, and it shows the time and energy the Torwalts spent on their project. This is what I like about the Bethel Music Collective of Artists: they’re passionate for God but also do their music with excellence; so far I honestly don’t think they have an “rivals,” per say. This album does have a contemporary sound to it, but the lyrics are far from anything you’ll find on Spirit 105.3 or Praise 106.5, for example.

The bottom line, scrounge up some money like I was too lazy to do and buy their album Champion.