Louder Than The Music

Juno Award-winning worship band The City Harmonic reveals its eagerly anticipated, second full-length release, 'Heart' this week. The album follows the band's critically acclaimed debut, 'I Have A Dream (It Feels Like Home)'.

Co-produced by The City Harmonic and Jared Fox, 'Heart' begins where I Have A Dream's 'Holy Wedding Day' ends, with 'Here & There', a sweeping, theatrical metaphor for the entire album.

"Here I am, a finite being, juxtaposed against the eternality of Christ, who talks about living in our dying," vocalist/songwriter and pianist Elias Dummer says, "and here we are dying everyday, a little further along than the day before... Whatever comes, we are not called to a life free from suffering, we are called to something bigger than ourselves. We are called to Christ."

'Strong', written by Elias and bassist Eric Fusilier over Skype with Elias at a show and Eric at home, grew from a place of vulnerability and not knowing in the middle of Eric's battle with cancer. "I wasn't really in a place to write anything," Eric says.

"Emotionally, I felt like a child who had been let down by his parents for the first time... I just couldn't see [my illness] as a blessing. I couldn't connect with God. To confront that stuff and write 'I am strong in my weakness,' was really difficult because I couldn't deny how I really felt..." Near the one-year anniversary of the stem cell transplant that saved his life, Eric's cancer is in remission.