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Shane & Shane [Everything Is Different] | Posted October 27, 2009
[MAIN REVIEW]
With career sales exceeding 450,000 units, the acoustic guitar-wielding, Texas-based duo Shane & Shane returns with its eighth album, Everything Is Different. The album embraces a more corporate worship style, inspired by Shane Barnard and Shane Everett's role as worship leaders at their home church in Dallas. Influenced by the pair’s ongoing involvement in teaching and training students in the area of worship ministry, Everything Is Different offers moments that range from vertical praise to quiet reflection.
Among the most devotionally focused singer/songwriters of this generation, for Shane Barnard and Shane Everett, it all comes back to the creative source. “We always have a tendency to bring the scriptures into our songs,” Barnard explains. “It happens naturally for us. It’s not like we have a game plan, but we’ve always spent a lot of time in the Word of God. The Word of God is just so good - if you don’t mess with it - it’s hard to mess it up. I think this album, probably more than any other album we’ve done, is the Word of God set to music.”
My favorite overall song by Shane & Shane is now the title track “Everything is Different”, which is a song about all of these things that are completely changed and how different they are in Christ. Shane & Shane drew heavily on scriptures from Isaiah to make its point in this upbeat, corporate worship song, comparing the wages of the world with the free gifts of God - from ashes to beauty, from heaviness to praise, from no way to a clear path, from the impossible to all things are possible.
Primary songsmith, Shane Barnard drew on Hebrews 1 and Psalm 40 for inspiration in the gorgeous corporate worship hymn, “Worthy of Affection.” The album’s sweet yet pulsating musical version of “The Lord’s Prayer” is taken word for word from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Shane Everett lends his rare songwriting talent on “Rain Down,” a song that reflects Psalm 27. The album’s first radio single, a creative re-imaging of the beloved hymn, “My Hope Is Built,” is based on Jesus’ parable of the wise man who built his house on solid rock, found in Matthew, chapter seven.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Musically this album is very diverse and the songs are acoustic oriented with very biblical lyrics. Harmonizing together on every song, Shane & Shane’s personal and vulnerable vocals have never sounded better. Each successive album has improved on the last for Shane & Shane from Clean to Pages to Everything Is Different, which is now their best overall album in my opinion. For me, the standout songs are “Everything Is Different”, “Worthy of Affection”, “I’m Alive”, “Rain Down” and “My Hope Is Built”. If you’ve liked past hit songs “Be Near”, “Yearn” and “We Love You Jesus” by Shane & Shane, then you need to pick up Everything Is Different.
Rating: 9.0 out of 10 (90%, A-)
Review written by: Kevin Davis | Review can also be found here.
This review has been reprinted on NRT with permission from ChristianMusicReview.org. Click here to visit ChristianMusicReview.org today!
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