Album Review :
The City Harmonic - Introducing The City Harmonic EP
Band: The City Harmonic
Title: Introducing The City Harmonic EP
Label: Kingsway / ThankYou Music
Release Date: Nov. 23rd, 2010
Reviewer: Shawn H.
Tracklisting
- I Wonder
- Manifesto
- My God
- Coming My Way
- I Am
- What I Want
Bio:
When listening to The City Harmonic, you instinctively turn up the volume and join the chorus as the music dynamically bounces from sparse intimacy to soaring celebration and back again. It’s a musical metaphor for the band that plays it—with their feet in the dirt and their eyes toward the heavens. It isn’t long before you find yourself singing along and not because you ought to, but because you want to. Like a spontaneous outbreak of “Hey Jude” around the campfire, you want in on the moment. And getting people in on the act—hearts pounding and feet moving—is at the core of what The City Harmonic is about.
The Canadian band’s six-song EP debut, Introducing The City Harmonic, is a nostalgic Brit-pop meets campfire sing-along mix that features raucous, gang vocals along with agile, soaring anthems crafted to include the listener. The band, consisting of front man Elias Dummer, bassist Eric Fusilier, guitarist Aaron Powell and drummer Josh Vanderlaan, isn’t as interested in finding fans as they are looking for participants in the journey. “Both art and worship are participatory acts—not consumptive acts,” says Elias. “What is meaningful for people is the experience, that creative moment when art is shared. To us, it’s almost as though these songs just don’t sound right without everybody involved.”
The songs on the self-produced EP seem to embrace the horizon line between the wonder of God and every-day life, and nowhere is this more evident than the opening track, “I Wonder.” A pulsing chant-a-long driven by Aaron Powell’s soaring, echoey lead guitar and accompanied by a sweeping string arrangement, it is a song that captures the band’s fascination with the overlap between this world and the next. Front man Elias shares, “There’s this old Celtic proverb that I love: ‘milking the cow is Holy.’ It reminds me that everyday moments are profound and that we worship with our lives, not just a couple of songs. Just think about that first ‘true love’ moment in your life. People have written more songs about that moment than any other event. How much more profound will our first face-to-face moment with God be? ‘I Wonder’ is really about approaching these moments with wonder and knowing it’s a glimpse of even better things to come.”
Even the band’s name is partly derived from the sense that in communal worship we catch a fleeting glimpse of the world that we pine for. Elias explains: “C.S. Lewis said this thing that’s always stuck with us: ‘If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’ It’s like there’s this hopeful nostalgia within us all for the way things ought to be. It’s great when coming together feels like that – like it’s the unveiling of something bigger and better than ourselves. If we can somehow spark in people a dream, something they just can’t shake, then that will inspire them to sing like every word matters, to live like every day matters, and having tasted heaven they’ll get on with helping this world feel more like home.”
For much of the past decade the band members have worked with TrueCity, a movement of local churches in their hometown of Hamilton, Ontario working together for the good of the city. Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’” “Sure, we hear this all the time – but there are six important words that are often overlooked: and the second is like it,” says Elias. “God doesn’t separate our ability to love our neighbour from our capacity for loving Him. It doesn’t matter how much so-called religious fervour we muster up if we’re living selfishly. It’s no wonder, then, that we should care about social justice if the thing most like loving God is to love my neighbor. It’s a no-brainer. It just makes sense.”
With a sound informed by mainstream acts like Arcade Fire, Coldplay and The Beatles, The City Harmonic seek to create music they enjoy themselves “I guess we didn’t worry too much about whether these songs were ‘singable’ or not,” admits Elias “People don’t sing along to old hymns because they’re ‘singable’ – the songs move them and mean a lot to them. They weren’t simple in the way that people sometimes suggest worship songs should be, but people connected with them anyway. We can’t make worship music formulaic, we have to move and inspire people. I hope we can write songs that are creative and honest. The kind of songs that capture people’s hearts and minds – then I believe their voices will follow. I pray people can connect with them and make them their own. Hopefully they aren’t worship songs simply because we say so, but because they come from honest, worshipful lives and inspire the same in others.”
Introducing The City Harmonic is just a taste of what’s to come from this creative Canadian foursome. The band’s upcoming full-length album will continue the journey—songs and stories that tell of hope, unity and seeking a greater kingdom, and music fans are already pulsating and singing along at the top of their lungs as they eagerly await this highly anticipated debut.
Review:
The City Harmonic is an artist that shouldn’t be underestimated. This album is infused with a strong Brit-Pop inspired worship sound. Within moments of listening to the beginning of the first track “I Wonder”, it is obvious that this isn’t a group that takes their music inspirations lightly. I had previously heard some of Elias Dummer’s solo stuff that he wrote a few years ago, & was expecting something similar to his previous Rock sound. But this updated (& mature) sound is a sure sign of improvements in song writing & a personal growth. I’m normally not a big fan of strings & such in songs, but the use/implementation of strings on “Coming My Way” is so well done that I wonder why most other worship artists don’t use such instruments in their songs. It is rare that all the tracks (6 in this instance) of an album can strike you at the core with their lyrics, but The City Harmonic has accomplished this endeavor successfully with this latest album. If I had to choose one song that stuck out for me, it would be “What I Want”, not because of how it sounds on this album, but rather because of how amazing it sounds live. Elias sometimes leads worship at the church I attend, & I was certain he was playing someone else’s worship song. It was only once I returned home that I noticed it was on the EP & that it sounded as amazing in person as it does on CD. This talented foursome are just beginning this new music endeavor, but the years of experience that they bring together for this new EP. Their raw hearted worship is something that is needed in this generation. Although they only recently signed to Kingsway/Thank You Music, I would not be surprise to see them join or partner with Come&Live in the next year or so.