Genre: Country/Bluegrass/Southern Gospel, Folk/Acoustic/Americana, Pop/Rock, Worship
For fans of: MercyMe, Vince Gill, Harry Connick Jr., Hank Williams Jr., Marty Stuart, Bill Gaither, Russ Taff
Label: INO Records

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It's funny how Bart Millard charted as the top selling new Christian artist in the year that his first solo album,HymnedNo. 1, was released. The man better known as the voice of multi-platinum band MercyMe ("I Can Only Imagine") was foremost aiming to fulfill a promise made to his late grandmother to record the church songs she'd led him to love as a boy. Popular success as a singular act was an afterthought, though much appreciated.

Christianity Today gave the unexpectedly soulful, Deep South gospel-meets-pop, rock, and country set a five-star review, calling it "one of the most enjoyable and varied hymns albums ever recorded. You may have heard it all before, but you haven't heard Hymned."

Having had such a great experience all around with that first effort, Millard is back with Hymned Again, this time specifically honoring the wishes of his three children who enjoyed their dad's record so much they wanted another one. "Our six-year-old son, Sam, would fall asleep listening to it and then be singing 'In the Sweet By and By' at breakfast the next morning," says Bart. "There were more songs that my wife and I wanted him and Gracie and Charlie to know. Now they're singing along to these new takes on 'I Stand Amazed' and 'Victory in Jesus' at the top of their lungs, and we're so happy about how that affirms the decision to do this again."

Hymned Again re-teams Millard with award winning producer Brown Bannister. Together they handpicked hymns of an evangelistic nature mostly from the 1800s, setting an outward-then-upward spiritual tone for the album. "I've learned the lyrics of that era were more horizontal than vertical," explains Bart. "A lot of songs from the 1700s were direct praises to Jesus, and that's reflected on the first Hymned record. But in the 1800s the message was often person-to-person, an 'I've got to get my brother or sister saved' way of expressing faith." Such a unified theme perfectly balances the increasingly diversified styles that make Hymned Again, indeed again, a true rarity among modern Christian music albums. Acute listeners have rightfully lauded gamut-running efforts before (David Crowder*Band's A Collision for example), but it's safe to say they haven't encountered many projects—from a contemporary pop-based artist—that open with a Dixieland banjo, proceed deeper into New Orleans flavored horn-led marches and stomping Texas guitar blues, or let a ukulele do the driving at one point without altogether ignoring commercial sensibilities. "Brown and I decided to go to extremes," admits Bart. "If the song was upbeat, we'd get out a funky Harry Connick, Jr. album, some Louis Prima big band, or a Bob Wills swing record for inspiration and swing for the fence, hoping to get that 'soundtrack to your life' vibe. And if it was a slow song, we'd go the other way and really make it worshipful."

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