Martha Munizzi – Make It Loud

Martha Munizzi
Make It Loud
Martha Munizzi Ministries (2011)
http://www.marthamunizzi.com/

Is it me or does Martha Munizzi get even better with each successive CD?

The Florida worship leader’s latest release, Make It Loud, definitely lives up to its title. The opening selections barrel out of the starting gate as if powered by racing fuel. The title track and “Excellent” are stadium-filling, high-energy praise and worship celebrations.

Munizzi sings with the friendly, instantly appealing verve of Shania Twain, and possesses a practiced sense of timing and mood-setting. Like a pleasant aroma, her extended improvisations quietly captivate listeners, draw them in and, once in the palm of her hand, bear them to a state where body, mind and soul are in synch.

After a thunderous beginning, Munizzi switches to acoustic praise ballads dignified with lovely and simple melodies. The finest among them is “No One Higher,” and on “Fill Me,” Munizzi and Daniel Eric Graves – one of several featured guest vocalists – build the atmosphere to fever pitch.

On “My God is a Big God,” Munizzi works with the popular William McDowell and Jeff Smith, whose leap into falsetto brings joy to some female members in particular. This song is the crowd pleaser: by the end of the nine-minute reprise, the entire congregation is wrapped up and tangled up in the spirit.

Speaking of guest vocalists, Martha’s daughter Danielle sounds strikingly like a teen version of her mother as she renders her lovely original composition, “Your Love Oh God.”

Recorded live before an appreciative congregation at City of Life Church in Kissimmee, Florida, Make It Loud demonstrates Martha Munizzi’s masterful command of a worship service.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Make It Loud,” “Excellent,” “No One Higher.”