#evan wickham

Evan Wickham

Hope so real, you can feel it grow, rising high like the tides that flow.

I love this song, especially these phrases. It sticks in your head like gum under a table.

Evan Wickham’s Make Us One is an expansive and cinematic modern worship album that yields a refreshingly listenable worship encounter. The album borrows from some of Hillsong’s recent retro synthy atmospherics, and there are sprinkles and sweeps of guitar, strings, piano, and a cornucopia of sounds. The dreamy yet rhythmically anchored title track—“Make Us One”—begins this journey of love and discovery. Next, tribal drums, moody guitar, evocative vocals and layers of sound cry for God to “Come for Us,” addressing both Jesus and the Holy Spirit directly. The bouncy pop of “Intimacy” has a sugary Loveboat theme song vibe that is strangely compelling. Love and adoration are a thread throughout every song. The emotional and spiritual lift on the exquisitely penned “The Day That He Returns” infuses ascendant hope in the face of grief. “Risen” is a new Easter Song with a retro 60’s pop feel. “No One Like You” and “Shepherd of My Soul” continue with congregationally-hued love songs to our God. And whether encouraging people in their marriages in the reflective/transparent “Don’t Give Up” or supplying songs for almost every sacrament or service need from weddings to funerals, Wickham gifts us with the joy of being surprised. The collection fittingly ends with the perfect benediction to an album or service: “Yours Is the Kingdom”—the kind of send-out and off that reminds us of God’s love for us, presence with us, and his mission through us.

My favorite version of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Evan Wickham and his band perform it perfectly.

My favorite version of this great Christmas hymn. Evan Wickham: