I’m stoked! The live album Nite.EV Live had its official online launch this week.

I was there on the night, belting it out, and it really was an awesome night of praising God – a bunch of people from all congregations taking over a movie theatre, joyfully and freely using our lips and our bodies to express the emotions our heart felt in response to the truths our heads knew. We could have sung forever – in fact, we made the band play another set – but there were more than a few hoarse voices when we finally did stop.

I’ve just sampled the album, and I’m thrilled: the energy of the night carries onto the record!

This was literally my first chance to hear it, in the mac shop at Kuala Lumpur airport. The CD sounds… awesome!!! I wonder if the Japanese guy standing next to me had any idea just what he was tapping his foot to…

What I love about it is that it sounds different, authentic. There’s great diversity across the album, the result of having 3 different bands playing. The words express deep, wonderful truth, the music is stylistically excellent and technically tight, but somehow the whole package comes out sounding different to your standard Christian album. (I think the best way to understand what I mean is to listen for yourself.)

The ‘head music guy’ at night church, Dan Godden, gave his thoughts:

I think that in Australia we have tons and tons of Christian CDs but few genuine Church CDs… we wanted to buck that trend. We wanted to record something that wasn’t a sweetened up studio version of our songs, but rather an authentic expression of who we are, what we live for, and some of the joy we have in singing together as a church to our Saviour and to each other. 

If you haven’t listened, listen (www.niteEV.com/live). If you haven’t bought it, buy it. If you haven’t told your friends to buy it, tell them. And if you’re not planning to give it away for Christmas, you’re nuts.

Have you listened, or bought a copy? What did you think? Leave a comment, or, if you have a blog, why not review it? – let me know in a comment and I’ll add a link to your review.