Some artists enter the studio determined to make a radical departure from who and what they are, or indulge some musical flavor of the month in a bid to expand the fan base. In either event, those strategies often backfire — though in staying true to his calling, GRAMMY® winner Chris Tomlin thinks not of popularity, but rather the populace his music can touch and encourage.

“I’m not trying to make a different kind of record,” says Tomlin of his latest effort, Love Ran Red “It’s still the same path I started down: writing songs for the church, songs people can sing, songs that connect with people in their heart and move them in a way only songs can. That’s not changed — and yet this collection I feel is the strongest I’ve ever done.”

That’s setting the bar quite high for his tenth studio recording, given that his last effort “Burning Lights” kicked off 2013 as a No. 1 album. It also led to sold-out tour dates, Billboard Music Awards, being named a BMI Songwriter of the Year and receiving the K-LOVE Fan Award for Male Vocalist of the Year and Dove Award for Songwriter of the Year.

Yet Love Ran Red picks up where its predecessor left off. True to its title, it expresses beating-heart faith and channels love’s ceaseless flow into a dozen songs to get the blood pumping and spirits soaring.

To that end, Love Ran Red shows Tomlin reaching and stretching forward, even as he leans back on what’s always worked best. Produced by longtime friend and collaborator Ed Cash (Kari Jobe, Vince Gill, David Crowder* Band, Dave Barnes, Steven Curtis Chapman), the album strikes stirring tones of hope, praise and the peace found only in God’s presence. 

Great songwriters spend their lives baring their souls onto the page, hoping some sliver of truth reaches and resonates with the masses.

But for Matthew West, multiple ASCAP Christian Music Songwriter/Artist of the Year winner, American Music Award and Billboard Music Award winner and four-time GRAMMY® nominee, the masses have come to him, baring their souls and sharing their stories.

And forever changing the way he approaches the music he makes.

Produced by Pete Kipley (MercyMe, Crowder, Phil Wickam, Robert Randolph) Live Forever finds Matthew West digging deeper into the well of stories —over 40,000 true stories shared with him by people

all over the world—stories that six years and three albums later have had a profound ripple effect.

“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that storytelling is contagious,” West says. “So many people have been made to feel that their story is insignificant, that they don’t matter, or that their story is somehow disqualified because they’ve got too many messed up parts to it, and ‘Why would it matter?’”

But West has answered that question before in Story of Your Life (2010), Into the Light (2012) and now in Live Forever. “Each story told, awakens something in people who have yet to find the courage to tell their own,” he shares. “They begin thinking, ‘If God can use that person’s story, maybe He could use mine,’ and a chain reaction begins. One story goes out and more stories come back. One by one, these songs encourage people to be the storytellers in their own lives, wherever they are, because your story can help someone else and their story can help someone else. Telling our stories reminds us that we are not alone.”

He continues, “With my last two records, I was inspired by chapters in our stories that have already been written: life in a broken home, the loss of a loved one, forgiving someone who has hurt you, the guilt of past mistakes. Many people share with me the chapters that are behind them, the ones that still haunt them, ones that haven’t found redemption yet. With Live Forever, I felt it was time to acknowledge that none of us have a perfect story. Every story has its share of broken chapters. But then ask the questions, ‘Is this it? Are we just supposed to walk wounded through the rest of our stories?’ We could spend the rest of our lives focusing on the past, or we could dare to look ahead, and choose to believe that with God we’ve been given a chance to start new, and the best of our stories have yet to be written.”

This is the direction West had in mind as he returned to that cabin in the woods of Tennessee, a songwriter’s retreat where his previous two albums were envisioned. To make a record bursting with color and life – not just the life we have here, but the life that is to come. “With so much defeat all around us, people need to know there is victory. Maybe my job in reading a lot of these desperate stories is to extract the hope. I wanted to write songs that encourage people to remember that this life is not the destination. It’s a journey to the place of our ultimate hope, Heaven. This was a very decisive record in that way.”

“Worship that leads you into an encounter with God,” this is the heartbeat and passion of Amy’s music.  A songwriter and musician from a very young age, Amy taught herself how to play the piano at 10 years old. Not knowing how to put her voice and keyboard together, she began leading worship thirteen years ago as a leap of faith. Her style has progressed dramatically over the years, from rigidly reading music from a page to excelling in spontaneous and prophetic song.  She has a natural gift of changing atmospheres in worship by breaking through into the intimate presence of God and leading people into personal encounters with Him.  Amy has had international influence as a forerunner for spontaneous, Holy Spirit lead worship.

Stephonee Freeman is following