Review:

Made Me Glad

Oh what a quandary Miriam Webster is. She is an established songwriter and key player in Hillsong, so she has quite a track record. She has a beautiful voice too. But the album Made Me Glad is an odd concoction. It has all the normal Hillsong melodic twists and turns, although delivered in a gentler way, but nothing really stands out. Add to that a dull production and rather clichéd lyrics and we have something that is less than the sum of its parts. We begin to wonder if the Hillsong stamp has somehow become blunted with overuse. Just as all seemed lost along comes ‘Draw Near’ and it’s nothing less than a sensation. The words are a heartfelt meditation on love for God and all that it means and manages for the first time to break free from Christian writing-by-numbers. So good is it, that it’s impossible not to listen to it over and over. Perhaps Webster needs to aim for a clean slate and let the Hillsong influence go.

HIGH: Draw near is wonderful.

LOW: The rest is formulaic.

Published by: Kingsway