Matthew West Releases New Album Featuring "Never Ever Give Up"

I have been waiting for this since I heard the song during the KLOVE Fan Awards movie event. He wrote "Never Ever Give Up" for a little girl named Brooke who was battling cancer. I loved it the first time I heard it and was checking YouTube every couple months to see if he'd released an audio for it yet. I wanted to listen! He finally released it on his newest album, "All In".  

This post has been a long time coming, but album reviews take time to put together, and each time I'd come to post, I wouldn't have time. Better late than never! I'm going to review my favorite songs from the album (which may end up being the majority, we'll see :)

ALL IN
We'll start with the title track. What I like about this song is how it truly is about every single person. West sings, "we're all dying to live, but we're all scared to death". Doesn't that just about sum up everyone? This song, with its message and beat, is a great foot forward for the album.

BROKEN THINGS
You've heard this one on the radio long before the album came out. How does he do it? This song, like Mended, speaks to us when we feel useless to God. "The pages of history, they tell me it's true/ that it's never the perfect, it's always the ones with the scars that you use". The end of the chorus ties this song with the "all in" theme of the album as it says, "then here I am, Lord, I'm all yours". Wonderful, incredible song. 

THE SOUND OF A LIFE CHANGING
This is like a biography of West's life in a song! I love it. He starts off as a broke college student, attending a SCC concert (yes! :) and he hears God say, "that's gonna be you someday". How cool is that? Then it switches to him singing and "you're in the crowd, looking at me/ singing Child of the One True King" and he's thinking that any one person in that crowd could be experiencing what he did years ago. 

I love the way West is so humble about being used by God: "I'm no Billy Graham, but I come as I am, and you know that you can too". Any one moment can be the moment our life changes. 

Oooh! Here's the story of the song!

1 SONG
West has great lyrics, but he also has great music. This beat gets stuck in my head a lot. "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah" :) In '1 Song' the idea is that if he could only sing one song, it would be for God, but I also think it is a good reminder that we never know when our last is, so it should all be for God. 

And the finale.... NEVER, EVER GIVE UP
As I said at the beginning of this post, this song was written for Brooke, but I think it's going to encourage a lot of people who are going through incredibly challenging seasons. My favorite aspect is the upbeat music :) I can't help but smile and want to dance a bit when I hear this song. Added to it are the lyrics which are just so encouraging. Here's the song and then the video of Matthew and Elizabeth Hasslebeck surprising Brooke with the song. It's super sweet.

I don't know that I could pick a song off this album to be my favorite. I listen to all of these almost equally. Depends on what's in my head at the time. Usually I'm singing one of them and then I want to listen to the real thing. Hope you enjoyed this!