Music Review: House on a Hill by Amanda Cook
.jpg)
Music Review: House on a Hill by Amanda Cook
13 December 2019
Amanda Cook took herself away to a secluded house to bring her latest album to life.
The second album from Bethel Music’s Amanda Cook is a beautifully introspective take on what it means to be renewed by Christ.
Literally written in a house on a hill, the album carries an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity, where we are given a glimpse into Amanda’s spiritual life and how she communicates with her Creator.
Alternating between minimal instrumentation to full-on pop-ambient masterpieces, tracks like ‘Awakening, I Am – Because You Are’, and the piano-based title track gives you permission to pause and reflect. Meanwhile, ‘Evergreen’, and ‘New Country’ build a sense of energy and hope, drawing a line from start to finish about the goodness and consistency of God amidst our own pain and struggle.
Amanda has a purity to her delivery that we’ve come to expect from one of the worship genre’s best vocalists.
Yet, if possible, House on a Hill is even more stripped back and vulnerable than her debut. Sure, the production team has experimented with reverb and different electronic tones sliding underneath her vocals but, at its core, this is a musical retelling of what it means to unravel before God and experience healing.
Fans of Bethel artists like Kristene DiMarco and Kim Walker-Smith will love this album, purely because it carries a similar sound to their latest releases – a marker of the Jesus Culture movement and their production team.
But for what it’s worth, Amanda seems to give more space to silence and the unknowns of faith. Because of this, House on a Hill isn’t innovative or unexpected, but it is a moving piece of art that will guide you through your own becoming.
Available at Koorong and on iTunes.
Comments
No comments yet - be the first.