Many words could be used to describe UK based worship leader Olly Knight, but perhaps the best is "earnest." There is a refreshing joyful purity exuding from his music. As the leader of the worship team at The City Church in Canterbury, Knight has been writing and heading up online worship gatherings during the pandemic with thousands of participants. One of the fruit of these worship experiences is his newest album, You Hold The World/Lockdown LP. These are indie/pop songs with titles like, "We Sing Because He's Won," "Father of Mercies," "You Hold The World," and "You Reign," leaving no doubt that these are vertically directed songs of praise. As for the music itself, it fits squarely in the indie pop/worship vein that is currently topping the charts in Christian music. This is both a good and bad thing as it could make it easy to overlook these songs. On a few occasions, they fall into forgettable territory, but I found "You Hold The World" and "Longing," the low-key closer, to be the biggest highlights. Overall, though, Olly Knight has a pleasant voice, some developing songwriting chops, and this is a crisply produced set of songs that shows great promise moving forward.

- Review date: 9/16/20, written by Josh Balogh of Jesusfreakhideout.com