Artist: Great Awakening
Album: Cities
Label: N/A
Reviewer: Stephen M
Coming from Burlington, North Carolina is a five-piece modern day worship band that doesn’t follow the status quo – they have a fresh, creative, non-generic sound of worship. As I look at the album titled Cities by Great Awakening I hope you see how they are a different sounding worship band in an over saturated genre.
Great Awakening is a beautiful addition to the worship genre. They infuse the music with an assortment of rock, ambient, spiritual hardcore worship (I just made that genre up, didn’t think there was enough already?). Sounding similar to The Glorious Unseen and Jeremy Camp you will discover throughout this album the element of beauty Great Awakening has to offer. This is the type of music you will want to listen to driving home from work or after having a rough day at school – it will lift your spirits, encourage you, and make you feel renewed.
As you listen to this album you will notice how two tracks are never alike – one moment you could be listening to the serenading sounds of a guitar, while the next you could be listening to the dazzling dynamics of a piano solo.
One thing I enjoy a lot about Great Awakening is how each band member has a heart for the Lord. They all have a passion and desire to create music to glorify our Heavenly Father. The band consists of Cole Johnson on guitar/vocals, Ben Woods who plays the Keys/Synth and everything else cool, Tanner Johnson on the drums, Bryan Frazier on the bass and Zach Janicello who does guitar and vocals. Throughout each individual track the talents of the band members shine and with two main vocals in the band it makes for nice transitions and harmonies. Each song is filled with catchy melodies that will have the tunes playing in your head throughout the day.
Lyrically Great Awakening is centered around our Savior, Jesus. Each member realizes there is something much bigger than just creating good music and playing concerts. They sing about love, brokenness, humility, and the need for constant intimacy with our Heavenly Father. An example of this is from the song, “Dependency.” “Throw out my pride, my dependency’s in you, my heart’s desire fled from my chest and ran after you.” And from the song, “New Life.” “I need you Jesus, how I breathe you Savior. I love how you Jesus, invite me in more and more.”
Great Awakening is one of my favourite worship bands to date and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the future. If you like Modern day worship with a selfless message, check out Great Awakening.
Overall: They are going to be posting a brand new song on their MySpace page today called “Dependency”- go check them out!
MySpace