Beating Time
TITLE: IN JESUS
ARTIST: Phatfish
WEBSITE: http://phatfish.net
PRICE: £13.00
FORMAT: CD (10 tracks, 40 mins.)
STYLE: rock
They’ve done it again! I resisted the temptation to rave about last year’s 15th anniversary double compilation album 15 (until now), but I’m not going to waste this month’s column on anything less than In Jesus. Quite simply, both musically and theologically, it absolutely rocks!
If I have not love then I am just a clanging cymbal / And if I have not love then I am just a lot of noise / I must lay my pride aside, preferring others needs / O Lord help me to love ...
Since Guaranteed (see Beating Time, EN, August 2007) the band has grown by 50% with the infusion of new blood in the form of two young bright things on guitar. This explains the renewed emphasis on rock, but the not-so-old Fellingham / Sandeman contingent has also stepped up their game.
New life is found in Jesus, in Jesus / All hope is now in Jesus, in Jesus / In him we have forgiveness, forgiveness / God’s grace revealed in Jesus, in Jesus ...
Fans may take the Scripture-drenched lyrics for granted, but this is what makes Phatfish so worth listening to. If only more contemporary Christian musicians would let the word of Christ dwell in them as richly, and took as seriously their responsibility in teaching and admonishing!
We were lost, far from God, enemies of Heaven / We were cursed, condemned to die / But at the cross the sinless One was made to be sin for us / We’ve been given the righteousness of Jesus ...
There’s plenty here to feed the children of God, to remind them of all that God is, and of all that they have in him. But as Lou and Nathan explained at the first New Word Alive last year, they have a new sense of urgency in declaring the gospel of Jesus to the lost.
Are you financially secure? / Or are you numbered with the poor? / Your wealth will never be your cure / Your heart needs something more / Bow down and surrender to him / You were made to worship him ...
Can we rock the gospel? Well, I know of no band that does it better than Phatfish, and with such faithfulness, compassion and reverence. Oh, and the music is jolly good too. In a word: rocks!
