Awaken Music Releases Worship Warfare Album, 'Move Of Heaven'
San Diego-based collective Awaken Music, from the 10,000 member, multi-campus Awaken Church, releases its sophomore, full-length album, Move Of Heaven, to digital and streaming outlets everywhere today (July 15) via The Fuel Music.
Produced by GRAMMY Award-winning Stephen Blake Kanicka (Kanye West, for KING & COUNTRY) and mixed by David Cook (Chris Tomlin, Shawn Mendes), Move Of Heaven pushes the artistic envelope with a modern pop sonic landscape mixed with spiritual warfare anthems. Leaning deeply on faith to drive action, Awaken Music intends to bring the body of Christ together when circumstances could otherwise drive them apart.
“The idea behind Move of Heaven is really to engage with God and believe that He is going to invade earth and affect change for all of us as believers,” says Awaken Church Executive Pastor Mike Yeager. “It’s a warfare album. We want all of our songs to really encourage people to move toward the front lines of the spiritual battle at hand.”
Ripe with honest and encouraging lyrics, the album features the Worship Leader-premiered lead single “Come What May,” the Awaken Conference-inspired “Revive Us” and focus track “Peter,” which is a first person account of Peter's interaction with Jesus, his despair in failure and triumph in God's restoration.
Along with the music, Move of Heaven expands on the concept of spiritual battle in its visual components. In addition to Awaken Music releasing stylized performance videos for each song, its new album’s cover is derived from the painting The battle of Marciano in Val di Chiana by Giorgio Vasari.
Yeager, who has a PHD in structural engineering and spent time in Florence, Italy studying cultural heritage and structural assessments of buildings and monuments before joining the Awaken Music team, shares how in the back of Vasari’s original fresco painting, there is a small green flag that says “cerca trova,” which means “seek and you shall find.” The wall of this painting is rumored to have been placed in front of, with an approximately six inch gap, the unseen painting by Leonardo da Vinci, The battle of Anghiari.
“Many believe Vasari left a clue to this hidden painting with the flag, alluding to the priceless treasure behind the depiction of battle. The idea of treasure and beauty waiting just inches past a war is much like the experience of Christians,” Yeager notes. “That’s one of the beauties of the Christian life, especially for us at Awaken Church. We talk a lot about ‘the battle’ and ‘the fight,’ but the paradox is that the more we’re engaged in spiritual warfare, the more we actually find rest.”
Exploring that paradox, Awaken Music’s Move of Heaven is a project that is meant to impact culture and inspire changed lives. “God is active, so the church and the music should be as well,” Yeager emphasizes.
