Various Artists

Shout! Amen
Spring Hill Music

This is the latest in the Spring Hill “Shout!” series, which is essentially the gospel equivalent to the ever-popular and overly commercialized “Now That’s What I Call Music” CD series.

The first three releases were dated in advance like the “WoW” series. The original “Shout! 2001” released in late 2000, while “Shout! 2002” and “Shout! 2003” followed a similar schedule. “Shout! Amen” is the fourth release but employs a word rather than a date.

In this two-disc collection, you will find 30 of today’s top southern gospel artists performing their southern gospel hits — The Kingsmen, Jeff and Sheri Easter, The Kingdom Heirs, The Isaacs, The Booth Brothers, Karen Peck & New River and, of course, the Gaither Vocal Band, just to name a few.

And — thank the Lord — there, hidden inside a CrossWay song’s parentheses, are the five words that will always take a project up a notch: “Featuring The Oak Ridge Boys.”

It’s a compilation the size of Texas but sounds more like Tennessee, and if you like southern gospel, then you’d be hard-pressed to do better.