mgpcpastor's blog

EMU jumps on board the modern-hymns express with Breath Of Life, their newly released album.
The modern-hymns movement seeks to take lyrics from older hymns, remove archaisms from their wording and provide them with new musical settings, recognising the enduring worth of historic hymnody.
Readers of this blog will have heard of Indelible Grace, Sojourn and Zac Hicks, among others; along with the fine modern hymn writing of Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.
So I was really looking forward to EMU’s contribution to this growing and very welcome trend.

Which makes this a particularly challenging review to write.
For an album whose tagline is Historic Hymns For Contemporary Christians, after listening to Breath Of Life I just can’t quite figure out where these particular contemporary Christians are.
Perhaps from twenty years ago.
EMU has generally functioned as a collective, so no overarching musical style has dominated.
The music has generally been secondary to the lyrics, which is preferable to say, Sovereign Grace Music’s output where the lyrics are pretty much dependent on the music to carry them.
But this album sort of sounds like late eighties and early nineties AM radio pop music. Having determined that Contemporary seemingly means pop, this is music which already sounds dated, and I can’t see how it will travel too well. The problem for me is that these sound neither cutting edge or timeless, and they barely sound timely now.
Apart from a few exceptions, such as Trevor Hodge’s Breath Of Life, the melodies don’t hook, and while I could imagine that groups persevering with these settings will eventually get people singing along, I can’t really see these as tunes that you’d find lodging themselves in your memory.
(And I’ve listened to this between five and ten times.)
By now when A Mighty Fortress Is Our God comes on, I automatically hit the next-track button (and my daughter always thanks me), and when How Firm A Foundation starts I keep flashing back to Together In Electric Dreams.
An anthem like Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken is transformed to a love ballad, the new melody of Praise My Soul The King Of Heaven is less instinctive that its non-contemporary counterpart.
Sigh.

Apart from the above mentioned Breath Of Life, O For A Thousand Tongues is probably the only other track that elicits a thought of ‘that’s interesting’.
If you’re singing the best of the EMU catalogue already (and there’s plenty there) and want to introduce some hymns to your group then Breath Of Life will be a low impact way to do that. Anyone used to EMU’s musical idiom will find this familiar and comfortable ground.
Hopefully EMU will revisit this concept in the future, but stretch themselves musically a bit more.