Aaron Gillespie: ‘Grace Through The Wandering’ album review

Recorded on the road, Gillespie found bits of time to write and track his latest solo worship record, Grace Through The Wandering, from places as disparate as Paris and Nashville. It’s unclear whether such a process impacted the final mix, but it’s impossible not to draw conclusions when an album feels this disjointed.

Musically, the wide range serves Gillespie well as he experiments with a number of sounds. “A Love Like Yours” sounds like a Paper Route outtake with a night sky of synths providing a dazzling backdrop for his musings on God’s greatness. “Keep Me In” haunts and stomps in all the right ways, while “Wake Us Up” is straight-forward but memorable.

The scatter-shot thematic approach keeps Grace from achieving any lasting impact. They’re all worship songs, yes, but under that umbrella, Gillespie shifts perspective, bounces between points, and fails to hold many threads together.