Praise and worship music is an amazing vehicle for Christian musicians to reach out and blanket huge masses of people with their message. These songs have to be catchy yet simplistic in order to be fully embraced. This is no easy feat and Isak Bosman proves in his debut album Let Us Rise that he is up to the task of providing fresh new worship tunes in a genre that can at times seem saturated with budding songwriters.
The acoustic guitar player perfected his craft as a former Hillsong worship leader in Australia. From there he heeded a call to serve as a worship pastor in Scotland. Up in the northern UK Bosman teamed with Scottish musicians Greame Duffin (Wet Wet Wet) and Sandy Jones to help produce his debut project. Guitarist Duffin adds some excellent electric guitar work to the album as evident in the bridge to the title track. His presence adds fullness and uniqueness when blended with Bosman’s acoustic guitar. Duffin shines on the electric playing the most intricate bridge solo of the entire album in the ballad “You’re the One.” This vibrant mixture of electric and acoustic (or acoustic and bongos as is the case in “Living For You”) along with Bosman’s youthful voice helps him to stand out and not be another Lincoln Brewster. Adding to the instrumental variety is some sweeping piano and keyboard work in the dramatic ballad “I Will Worship.”
The weakest parts of the album are actually the two cover songs. Despite his decent acoustic work in the bridge, Bosman’s voice is overexposed and quavering on Matt Redman’s “Let My Words Be Few.” To make up for this, Bosman exhibits more full, confident vocals on Steve Hindalong’s “God of Wonders” but the tempo seems unsettled. It is perfectly acceptable and even poignant to pay homage to prior influential songwriters; however Bosman is at his best singing his own creations.
All eight of the native South African’s original tunes are quintessential praise and worship gems. They are not too long, not too short, have no more than two verses before the heady chorus and are easily singable. Because Bosman’s work is so good, it makes one critical and nitpick at an almost flawless album. The best produced song with layered guitar effects, upbeat tempo and full background vocals is “It’s You That I Live For.” Again, while all the other tracks are good, what makes this one great is its energy and complete wall of sound. Bosman’s songwriting skills are up to par, now if he can add and tweak a bit more to his production to inject just a little more depth to his work, then the only place he can go is up.
Reviewed By Kelly O’Neil
