The Bell Tower – Nathan Tasker’s New Album

Nathan Tasker is an Australian expat musician based in the USA.
His latest album, The Bell Tower, is “a brand new collection of re-imagined hymns. Full of truth, as much now in our modern age as when they were first written, the old hymn lyrics are bought to life with an acoustic driven, soulful blend of folk and pop.”
Tasker is not stranger to hymns, with previous albums Come, See The Morning and Prone To Wander both featuring selections of classic songs for worship.
Of the eight tracks (the ninth is a simple coda), seven feature new tunes.
The tracks are: All Creatures of Our God and King; Man of Sorrows; How Firm a Foundation;There is a Fountain Filled with Blood; God Moves in a Mysterious Way; Safe in the Arms of Jesus; Take My Life; Abide with Me; and Bells.
As can be seen from the track listing, Tasker has taken the challenging route of selecting hymns that have very well known existing tunes. I’d expect that if congregations were going to adopt the tunes from The Bell Tower it would be because they weren’t already singing these songs in their older forms. And since lots and lots of churches aren’t making use of these songs in any form, the more encouragement they have to use them, the better. That said, I don’t know how easily available the sheet music for these would be to obtain.
Tasker’s vocals, the musicianship, and production values are outstanding.
Here’s an acoustic session of Man Of Sorrows from The Bell Tower. The album track is even better.