From Brick Street Records/Martingale Music artist, songwriter and worship leader Carmen D'Arcy, comes a collection of songs that can be sung together with a full band and 1,000 voices in corporate worship or unplugged in a simple devotional setting with one voice, piano and/or guitar.
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NOTABLE WORSHIP PROJECT LOST IN SHUFFLE| Posted September 24, 2008
Hearing your original tunes sung by 6,000-plus congregants weekly isn’t a shabby gig for a singer/songwriter whose main focus is creating music for the Church’s corporate musical offering. Leading worship at Grace Community Church, a mega-congregation located just outside Indianapolis, Carmen D’Arcy contends worship is more than the musical components she helps craft for Sunday mornings, but a bigger picture of lifestyle.
“In worship, we’re called to be filled up, moved, changed, turned around and sent out so we can be the light that God uses to change the culture and draw people to Himself,” D’Arcy explains on her official website. And on the songstress’ debut disc, A Place Called Grace, D’Arcy concentrates on the “filling up,” offering help with 11 songs of distinct praise.
Utilizing her church’s own worship choir, “Holy Is Our God,” “Hallelujah, We Sing to You” and the ebullient first single “You Are Everything” fuse the organic feel of a live worship service with top-notch studio players and production, giving the tracks possibility beyond worship music circles while sufficiently serving their priority audience. “Fade,” the intimate CD closer, is less congregational with its poignant lyric quietly reiterating D’Arcy’s focus on God versus man.
Though D'Arcy's a talented vocalist (think Nichole Nordeman’s timbre with Christy Nockels’ thick tone) and the disc is notably produced by Bryan Lenox (Michael W. Smith, Sonicflood), A Place Called Grace is unsuccessful in making its impression among the throngs of praise and worship CD releases, a niche growing exponentially every year. The songs, while certainly effective in their intended setting, fail to stand out in a broader, artist-driven industry.
But it is doubtful this criticism will impose any doom on D’Arcy’s continued ministry, as the songs’ (and songwriter’s) center care less about market trends, focusing instead on directing willing participants to the rightful Owner of praise. –Andrew Greer
This review has been reprinted on NRT with permission from Christian Music Planet. Click here to visit ChristianMusicPlanet.com today!
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