Get Your Music on Amazon!
Get Your Music - and everything else - on Amazon! All purchases made on Amazon through this link earn a commission for Jesusfreakhideout.com!

JFH Music Review


Elevation Collective, Evidence
CLICK COVER TO ENLARGE

Elevation Collective
Evidence



Artist Info: Discography
Album length: 8 tracks: 43 minutes, 33 seconds
Street Date: February 9, 2018


READER RATING:   


If you're interested in Elevation Worship, or if you're at least a fan of the eight popular Elevation Worship songs being reimagined here, then you should not hesitate to pick up this album. However, if you're looking into Evidence, the first album from Elevation Collective, because you're a fan of gospel music or interested by the involvement of singers like Israel Houghton and Tasha Cobbs Leonard, you will most likely find this to be a satisfying, if not intermittently disappointing, collection.

The most notable aspect of Elevation Collective's first outing is its singers, and each of them gets to show off his or her vocal prowess, especially Sherretta Ivey's powerhouse high notes on "Here in the Presence" and Cobbs Leonard, who slays on Evidence's opening track, "Here as in Heaven." What ultimately holds these songs back is not the performances or the presentation, but the fact that none of them were originally written to be gospel songs, placing these artists in a position of reinterpreting the songs with similar-sounding gospel tropes.

"Do It Again" (feat. Travis Greene and Kierra Sheard) is where the struggle is most apparent, with the most iconic aspects of the original suppressing just how much "gospel" can be placed on its skeleton. Almost as an effort to overcompensate, the bridge has two in-your-face key changes, neither of which quite work. The track continues on for an unforgivable ten minutes, yet ironically, it finally becomes a gospel song at the eight-minute mark, and those final two minutes are a blast of ad-libbed vocals ("You may not come when I want you / But you're right on time"), pulsating rhythms, massive choirs, and funky bass lines.

Actually, across the board, these songs are most worth your time during their endings. This is both a good and bad thing. The third track, "Unstoppable God" (feat. Tye Tribbett), is a misfire until its final 90 seconds, when the song trades in an ill-fitting, trap-laden islander chorus for a heavy-hitting bridge of thick bass synths alongside a choir singing dark, ominous harmonies in call-and-response with Tribbett. Many of these songs follow the traditional pattern of going big (like, BIG!) during the bridge, and this structural format grows tiring by the album's close.

Not every song is a mixed bag, though; "O Come to the Altar" (feat. Chris Brown and Israel Houghton) is absolutely lovely from start to finish, displaying a more subtle and restrained form of the gospel genre. Two of the most winning tracks come at the very end, both of which are helmed by The Walls Group; "Resurrecting" and "Raised to Life" tie together like one extended piece, and the latter part, at a mere two minutes ten seconds, could've been much longer. It's a fitting place to end, leaving listeners wanting more. Here's hoping that Elevation Collective returns again soon, with all these talented artists and more, to record not only new versions of old Elevation songs, but to collaborate on some gospel originals, too.

- Review date: 2/24/18, written by Chase Tremaine of Jesusfreakhideout.com



(JFH Sponsor Spot)

Check out JFH's Lloyd in his first-ever childrens book!

 

. Record Label: Elevation Worship Records
. Album length: 8 tracks: 43 minutes, 33 seconds
. Street Date: February 9, 2018
. Buy It: iTunes
. Buy It: Amazon Music (MP3)

  1. Here as in Heaven (feat. Tasha Cobbs Leonard) (7:43)
  2. Do It Again (feat. Travis Greene & Kierra Sheard) (9:59)
  3. Unstoppable God (feat. Tye Tribbett) (4:15)
  4. O Come to the Altar (feat. Chris Brown & Israel Houghton) (4:07)
  5. Jesus I Come (feat. Israel Houghton) (1:55)
  6. Here in the Presence (feat. Israel Houghton & Sherretta Ivey) (5:11)
  7. Resurrecting (feat. The Walls Group) (8:13)
  8. Raised to Life (feat. The Walls Group) (2:10)

 

 

 



Leave a Comment

 

 

go to main Album review page
go to Album review archive

 

 

                 
Check out JFH's Lloyd in his first-ever childrens book!

Search JFH



This Friday, May 16, 2025
ALBUMS
Confessions of a Traitor This Pain Will Serve You [Facedown]
Free Worship Praise Before It Happens [BEC]
GVTH DVDDY GVTH DVDDY [Velvet Blue]
Karen Peck & New River Good Answers [Daywind]
Lecrae & Miles Minnick Get Well Soon! [Reach]
Seventh Day Slumber Fractured Paradise: Garden of Shadows [Rockfest]
Sons of Sunday Sons of Sunday [Elevation]

SINGLES
AyeTJ Outdated - Single [Syntax]
Elan Brio Perfect Timing - Single (independent)
Melissa D Will I Be Bored in Heaven? - Single (independent)
Will Kellum Ready or Not - Single [Syntax]
Britt Nicole FAITH - Single (independent)
Makara Walk By Faith - Single [DREAM/DBMIX]
MAYIA Where Do I Go? (ft. Cutright) - Single [Syntax]
Matt Sassano My Armor - Single (independent)
Seph Schlueter Won't Start Now - Single [Provident]

VINYL
Petra The Best For Last (Studio Edition) Vinyl [Girder]

Next Tuesday, May 20, 2025
BOOKS
Shai Linne Penelope Judd [B&H]
Tauren Wells Joy Bomb: Unleash Jesus’s Explosive Joy for an Extraordinary Life [Zondervan]

Next Friday, May 23, 2025
ALBUMS
Big Daddy Weave Let It Begin [Curb]
ELEVATION RHYTHM Victory Lap [Elevation]
Signum Regis The Eyes of Power (Remixed & Remastered 2025) [Beyond the Storm]

SINGLES
Roxanne Grace Road Trip - Single [DREAM]
V1 Worship Fool for You - Single [DREAM Worship]



For all release dates, click here!
 

Join honey and save on online purchases!
Get all of JFH's indie compilation now totally free!
Check out depositphotos for royalty free images