CCM veteran Aaron Shust returns with his 9th studio album, Nothing to Fear.
While Shust burst onto the scene in 2005 and reached the top of the Christian music charts, he has gone on to steadily and humbly build a solid career and discography of worshipful offerings.
Regularly leading worship at his home church in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, it’s easy to imagine many of his latest songs fitting in well in a worship service on a Sunday morning.
Standout track More Than Welcome is a rousing reminder of our secured place in the kingdom through Christ’s sacrifice, as Shust sings:
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus
Mighty and vast and wild and free
Like an ocean over me.
Throughout his latest album, Shust proves he has an innate gift for songwriting and melody. Even if he applies it in an understated way, consistency and measured delivery are broken up by the subtle introduction of new instruments, ranging from funky trumpets on None Like You to mystical bagpipes on my personal favorite, This I Know.
Layered onto his immediately pleasing musical instincts is a burning desire to write lyrics that intimately point people to God.
Shust has said he walks into studio sessions with the mindset of, “I want to write brazen worship today.”1
It’s so refreshing to see a popular artist who isn’t afraid to be direct and paint a true picture of his relationship with Jesus, rather than couch his faith in flowery and vague language or analogies.
Instead, his desire is to write songs that will be “sung around the throne,”2 songs not just for today but for ten thousand years from now.
While musical styles may change in ten thousand years, you can be assured that the truth in his lyrics describing a good God will remain timeless.
1 extravagantworship.com/2018/05/an-interview-with-aaron-shust.html?m=1
2 ibid
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