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Lets start, as all good reviews should start, with a brief history of who this band are. Great Awakening are a four piece from Burlington, North Carolina. Formed when the four friends started leading worship together for their church's youth group. What led from that was times of writing their own songs as a young band, which led to the band releasing with Come&Live! Cities in 2009. As said the band are made up of friends and I have always said the best bands are the bands that grew together, knowing each other inside out, knowing each others strength and...
Read More Lets start, as all good reviews should start, with a brief history of who this band are. Great Awakening are a four piece from Burlington, North Carolina. Formed when the four friends started leading worship together for their church's youth group. What led from that was times of writing their own songs as a young band, which led to the band releasing with Come&Live! Cities in 2009. As said the band are made up of friends and I have always said the best bands are the bands that grew together, knowing each other inside out, knowing each others strength and weakness. The band are made up of Zach Janicello (guitar/vocals), Cole Johnson (guitar/vocals), Ben Woods (bass) and Tanner Johnson (drums).
The amazing Come&Live! have again given the band's new album Songs In Secret as a free download via their website. I know there is a lot of great music out and about these days, but to be able to get this album as a free download is truly a thing of beauty, because quality-wise this is a truly stunning album.
Being made up of 10 tracks that switch from fast paced alternative rock (Explore & Come Away), to atmospheric hard hitting soft creative songs(Come;Follow). With the music on the album begin creative, each note of the song isn't wasted and covered with distortion, and the songs are built up in the right time, not obvious song build ups to hype it up for the sake of it, this is stripped down non gimmick worship music. What is also nice is that the lyrics aren't the obvious over used Christian lines, they are all personal heartfelt cries of worship to God. If anything these songwriters are leaving themselves bare, which takes guts and deserves our respect for being so honest with songs that go beyond the surface.
If I had to explain this band in terms of another band, a very good comparison would be with British rock band Elbow with a hint of creative links to Radiohead (especially in the vocals of Come;Follow). The alternative indie rock sound continues throughout out the album ending with the closing track Many Waters, which has a hint of City Harmonic and Coldplay feel, which is a great way to finish this ten track album.
A wonderful album, alternative worship, with some interesting chords that can be compared to a few other indies bands around at the moment. Hopefully we will see much more from this band in years to come.
Review by Jono Davies
LTTM Rating 4 out of 5 Stars
Standout Tracks
Explore
Lazarus
Many Waters
