‘This is Life’ is the latest CD from Newfrontier’s Newday youth camp. Held in Uttoxeter in Derbyshire the camp brings together 6000 plus young Christians from across the UK for a time of fellowship teaching and worship. Over the last few years they have also released a CD of live worship from the camp and this year is no different.

‘This is Life’ features worship lead by Simon Brading, Lou Fellingham, Paul Oakley, Tree63 and Yfriday. It is an eclectic mix of Exuberant praise and soulful worship.

I must say on first hearing I was not that impressed with this year’s CD. In fact I did not like it at all. However over the last couple of weeks as it has played in the car as I have driven around the UK it has grown on me immensely. In particular the lyrics of the songs have grown on me.

The CD is clearly pointed at worship of our Lord for who he is and what he has done. It is not a ‘me’ or ‘my’ worship CD where the worship is focused on us but it is clearly focused on God.

The style of the music this year has changed with much more synth and keyboard being used over the previous use of basic guitar, bass and drum feel of previous years. This is what i think put me off at first hearing as I much prefer a ‘Rock’ feel to my music. However there are some tracks that retain the rock feel. In particular “We Shine” is a cracking rock anthem feel to it including what can only be called a football style chant chorus which is awesome.

The Yfriday track is also excellent, co written with Tim Hughes it utilises the basic feel of Yfridays rock style with crashing guitars and drums. Again the lyrics are fantastic.

The stand out track on the CD however is the Lou Fellingham lead “Come Let us enter” which is about humbly bringing our offering to Father no matter what is happening in our lives. The only issue is that this song is pitched so high that the guys will need elastic bands on painful parts of the body to reach the high notes.

So all in all this is an excellent CD and well worth the price you pay for it. There are a number of new songs on here that will no doubt become staples of many a worship time across a number of churches.

And then there is the BONUS DVD.

Bonus DVDs seem to be the in-vogue thing to add to any new worship CD. This one includes four live songs from the worship times at Newday08. The first is an amazing mix of Simon Brading and his band singing “Our God he Reigns” with the addition of some rappers which is awesome. Well worth a watch.

After watching this our kids are desperate to go but as they are currently too young they cannot attend for a couple of years yet. Which to them is rather annoying!

In addition there is an interview with Joel Virgo who heads up Newday and a couple of promo’s for next year’s Newday 09.

Also included are two talks from Newday08. One is by Joel Virgo and the second by Stef Liston. They give an excellent example of the great teaching that is available at Newday. Although one will no doubt cause a number of issues for some churches outside of Newfrontier’s as it is about complementarian view of men and women.