I remember, nearly twenty years ago, hearing a "rock" guitar solo on a worship album. I couldn't believe it; a guitar solo on a worship album! Fast forward to 2014 and Vineyard UK tries their hand at synth elements, programmed tracks, and even some dubstep on Rooftops: The Sound of Vineyard Youth. In some ways, worship music has come a long way from the elevator music of the Maranantha singers of the 80's; in other ways we have been stuck in a worship "rut" of sorts over the last couple decades. This effort deserves a little credit simply for trying to add some new elements to the tired genre of worship music.

Rooftops was recorded over the last two years at the annual Dream the Impossible (DTI) youth conference held at the Lincolnshire Showground in the UK. Young worship leaders Joel Barber (age 17), Jake Bateson (18) and Beth McNeil (17) show promise here as emerging worship leaders, if maybe not quite ready for primetime. The songs included are some Vineyard classics as well as new tunes written by Dave Miller.

The title track, "Rooftops," opens the album on a positive note and gave this reviewer high hopes for the record. Sadly, other than the earnest vocals on "What Can I Bring," that is the highlight of the entire album. Over the next 50 minutes, we get some misguided vocals, iffy musicianship, and most of all, programming that is just shy of good. This is supposed to be a live album, but for the most part, there really isn't enough crowd noise to give it that corporate worship feel.

While I am all for adding some different elements to the modern worship mix, it still needs to be done well. This album seems to try too hard to incorporate some modern sounds while still confined to the modern worship formula. Brenton Brown's "Hallelujah (Your Love is Amazing)" gets the "remix" treatment, which doesn't fare all that well. The album closes with a dubstep remix of "Forever Changed," which again, just isn't very good. If you are going to do dubstep, it really needs to be spot on.

Rooftops doesn't do enough things well to distinguish itself from countless other worship albums like it. For the most part, the arrangements just didn't seem as good as they could be. I look forward to a worship album that does something different and does those things very well. For now, this one could be shuffled in with the others and no one would know the difference.

- Review date: 5/28/14, written by Matthew Morris of Jesusfreakhideout.com