Amy Perry “Glory All Around” Album Review

Prime Cuts: Letting Go, Your Love, Fearless

No, contemporary Christian music group Selah is not breaking up.  In fact, they have a new album waiting in the wings ready to be unveiled come Fall of this year.  Yet, in the meantime, two of out of this multiple Dove ward winning trio have decided to wade in their own waters by releasing solo projects during the group's hiatus.  Both Allan Hall and Amy Perry have chosen to release their own solo albums on the same imprint, Curb Records, on exactly the same day.  However, rivalry can take a back seat as both records are as different as water and oil.  While Hall's effort was more or less an indulgent into the genre of Christian country and bluegrass, Amy Perry's "Glory All Around" is a modern polished pop-oriented worship album with the bulk of the songs addressed to God.  Though caricatured but if comparisons are to be made, "Glory All Around" is the kind of record you would expect from Kari Jobe or Kim Walker-Smith or Darlene Zschech.

The first thing to note about "Glory All Around" is that the absence of her band mates has not made Perry abandoned an iota of her verve or cojones.  In fact, there are many times you can almost feel as if Perry was about to jump out of the speakers as she sings with so much passionate for her Lord.  And this comes as no surprise, as "Glory All Around" finds a greater investment of Perry in the record not only emotionally but also in penning down what's there in her heart.  The album boasts 2 Amy Perry compositions and 1 Perry co-write.  "Fearless," a sole Perry original, is as fiery and zesty as the title suggests.  As if she was ready to swallow up her microphone, you can feel the passionate fuming right across every syllable of this praise anthem as Perry sings confidently of our Lord's protection through our trials.  Not even the flames of the furnace that Daniel's friends faced, as Perry sings about, has the way of silencing her deep seated trust in God. 

Nevertheless, the buzz is definitely around the album's power ballads: "Your Love," "Letting Go" and "When I Speak Your Name."  Featuring a blanketed throwback into the 90s where big piano ballads were the radio darlings of the day, "Your Love" is one of those octave-stretching songs that American Idol contestants love to get their voices around.  "Letting Go," composed solely by Perry, speaks of the struggle we all have in handling all of our lives to God.  The plangent feel of the song as well as Perry's emotionally nuanced delivery simply has a way of striking a nerve in our hearts.  "When I Speak Your Name" trumps on the song's melodic simplicity that provides a sonic canvas for Perry to pour out her love for her Savior.   

The aforementioned Kari Jobe joins pen with Jared G. Anderson and Michael Rossback in crafting the title track "Glory All Around.'  The song with its triumphant build up and the heavy augmented chorus begs to be sung right across churches across the globe.  Though somehow colorless is the pop light "Oh Hallelujah," a song that could place easily place Perry on the Christian AC chart.  Unlike her Selah albums which have a more encompassing content, "Glory All Around" is solely a worship album that allows Perry to express her love for Jesus in majestic proportions.  A "must buy" if you love worship music.

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