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A F T E R M A T H from Hillsong United

by Tim Schraeder on 02/15/2011 in Music, Reviews with 16 Comments

Hillsong United will break some charts today with their sophomore studio realease, A F T E R M A T H.

I got my copy of AFTERMATH about a month ago and haven’t been able to stop listening to it.

Admittedly, I’m a huge fan of Hillsong United so this review will be a bit biased. BUT, I will say that I generally prefer live projects over studio projects. I love it when the crowd seems to overwhelm the musicians and singers and makes a song of their own in live projects… there seems to be so much corporate energy and passion that is oftentimes not as present in studio albums. That being said, AFTERMATH follows Hillsong United’s first successful studio album Saviour King where we were introduced to Hosanna and Saviour King… both of which are standards in most churches today. Although the passion on these projects is contained to a studio they don’t fail to deliver heartfelt anthems for the Church.

This album is a fresh new sound from UNITED and will no doubt top sales charts and set lists for church worship services. It’s fresh, edgy, original, and at times absoluetely breathtaking.

The thing I love most about Hillsong United is that unlike many groups or bands out there, they are rooted in and committed to their local church, Hillsong Church based in Sydney, Australia [now with locations around the world including New York City]. Hillsong United isn’t a typical band and they don’t do concerts… they are group of musicians and songwriters who love Jesus, are committed to their local church and travel the globe leading people in worship experiences that leave you utterly and completely in awe of God’s presence. It’s not your typical church music and it’s not what you’d expect from a Church group but it’s the sound of a new generation of believers proclaiming the hope and freedom they’ve found in Christ and they can’t stay silent.

“The message of Jesus Christ is eternal, yet He continues to reveal Himself in new ways… giving us what we need to be followers and disciples of Christ for this time in history,” says Hillsong United frontman Joel Houston. “Life with God is fun, its an adventure, it is grace, freedom, peace and everything in between. Whether you are listening to our newest album or our very first, our prayer and passion is that you are empowered to live life with God, encouraged to stay on the course and excited about all that He has for your future.”

On the title of the album, AFTERMATH, Joel Houston says, “The cross is a paradox. What was a symbol of failure and death is now established forever as a symbol of life and victory. The crucifixion was a gruesome and traumatic event and at the moment of surrender as the storm clouds gathered and the skies went to darkness it would have seemed to all who were witnesses, especially His followers, that all hope was lost – the so called ‘Son of God’ humiliated and tortured, dying as He hung upon a cross. But unlike any historical event that has ever taken place before or after, this moment would change everything – Forever. Because of the cross we no longer have to live entangled in the fallout and the wreckage of our lives, or the worst the world can throw at us. We have been lifted out of the ashes and into the LIGHT of the aftermath. We find hope, peace, freedom, and life, and we can know with assurance that He is with us no matter what comes our way.”

A few songs that stood out to me on this project:

  • Take Heart – This song wrecked me in a good way. It’s a dramatic introduction to set the tone for a great album. This song talks about God’s faithfulness and calls us to take heart, hold on to hope and take courage through all seasons of life. It’s heartfelt, epic, passionate and ends reflectively with strings. I seriously listened to this song on repeat for about 2 days before I listened to the rest of the album. It’s that good.

  • Go - This is classic stadium rock at its finest with this catchy ballad that says “we’re giving it all to go your way.” Note that purchasing the deluxe edition of the album on iTunes is worth it to get the music video to this song.

  • Like an Avalanche - What a beautiful picture…  being “caught up in grace like an avalanche.” This song starts off quiet and ends in explosive cry, “take my life, take all that I am, with all that I am I will love You…” This song is sure to be one that will follow the same popularity as “Hosanna.”

  • Rhythms of Grace - One of my favorite translations of Matthew 11:28-30 is in the Message where it says, “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” This song talks about the transformative power of God’s grace in our lives. This song definitely is in the top 5 for me on this album, talking about how none of us can imagine how great God is and how expansive His love is for us.

  • Aftermath – First off, MARTY SAMPSON IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aside from that, this beautiful song is the title track of the album and shares how we are all caught in the aftermath of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. It’s a stunningly beautiful song, lyrically and musically, and paints a captivating picture of the freedom and hope we find in Christ. His love will light the way.

  • B.E. -  B.E. is an instrumental interlude featuring clips from the song A Beautiful Exchange. I can see many churches using this song for random videos. Definitely has a great vibe… sounds out of this world!

  • Father – I can’t wait to hear this song live. It will be out of control. This is song touches on the fact that God’s grace is enough for everyone and is a cry for the marginalized and oppressed. It’s a beautiful song revealing God’s heart for justice, reconciliation, and hope.

  • Search My Heart – The vibe of this song is just plain awesome. And the song is a familiar prayer “search my heart, and search my soul” and ends with the powerful declaration that “without You I am nothing.” This is a close contender for being one of my favorites from this project.

  • Awakening  - For the first time, Hillsong United covers a song from Chris Tomlin from the Passion Awakening project and does a great job of adding their signature spin to it. LOVE IT. Such a great and powerful song.

This album has a fresh sound, will encourage you and remind you of the truths of God’s Word, and will give you a new song to sing. It will take you on a journey and beyond the creativity, musicianship, and lyrics, it will leave you with a great sense of awe… of God, His love, and the hope we have living in AFTERMATH of His grace.

Even if you think you’ve heard Hillsong United before, you haven’t heard anything like this and you owe it to yourself to get found in the AFTERMATH.

Hillsong United is hitting the road across the USA starting in March… check and see if they are coming near you!

To celebrate the release of AFTERMATH, I’m giving away a few [legal!] copies… it’s too good to keep to myself!

Here’s what you need to do to win:

1 – Make sure you are following me! I’m @timschraeder

2 – Tweet this: I want to be found in the #AFTERMATH. I entered to win a copy of @hillsongunited’s new CD! Details here: http://bit.ly/hudrIF

3 – Leave a comment below [to confirm you did the first two steps] and let me know your favorite Hillsong United song and why you love it so much.

NOTE: I have to approve each comment so hang tight if yours doesn’t show immediately!

I’ll randomly pick a few of you throughout the day. You will a valid USA iTunes account to claim your prize!

New Christmas Tunes from Park

by Tim Schraeder on 12/07/2010 in Just For Fun, Music, Park with 11 Comments

Charlie Brown, Mariah Carey, and the “Rat Pack” make up a majority of the artists in my Christmas playlist. This Christmas I’m adding a new CD to the mix, Christmas Songs Vol I, a collection of songs from the bands at Park.

Park has a unique approach when it comes to music… we don’t have a traditional “worship team,” we have bands. Under the leadership of Joseph Tenney and Matt Marron [formerly of Pomeroy], we have a number of bands who each have their own unique style and genre that create original music as well as updating hymns. Instead of having a short list of musicians and singers and plugging them in where they fit, we put band leaders through extensive training, host auditions of musicians and singers and form bands that not only create great music but do life together in community.  It’s a different way of approaching worship but one that is resonating well with our congregation.

Christmas Songs Vol I is a collection of classic Christmas carols as well as original songs performed by nine of Park’s bands. It released at our church over the weekend and is now available for purchase on iTunes. It’s all over the place musically [in a good way] and captures the creative approach Park is taking with our band model.

I think it will make a great addition to your Christmas playlist so much so that I’m going to give away 5 copies! Just comment below and let me know your favorite Christmas carol. I’ll be picking the winners randomly now through tomorrow at Noon.

Either way, check it out and get yourself a copy… all proceeds from the purchase of the sale of the CD will go to benefit Renew Chicago, Park’s outreach arm that partners with other ministries around the city to make a difference!

Hillsong LIVE’s A Beautiful Exchange

by Tim Schraeder on 06/29/2010 in Music, Reviews with 68 Comments

Hillsong Church released their nineteenth live album today, A Beautiful Exchange, and I’m giving three copies away!

Hillsong isn’t a band, it’s a church… and their music is just a simple expression of what’s happening inside their House, which now spans the globe with their home base in Sydney and extension campuses in London, Cape Town, Stockholm, Moscow, Paris, and soon-to-be New York City.

If you ever get the chance to be a part of one of their worship nights when they tour, or if you ever get the chance to meet them, they will be the first to tell you from the outset that they are group of people who love Jesus and are faithfully committed to the music ministry of their local church.

For nearly twenty years Hillsong has given the Church a new song to sing, from Shout to the Lord, to Mighty to Save [which is currently one of the most-sung songs in churches in the United States], From the Inside Out, and Hosanna.

Each year, the church piles into a large venue to do a live recording of some of the best songs they’ve written and sung throughout the year to share them with the rest of the world.

This project lives up to its name, A Beautiful Exchange, both in the title track, talking about the exchange that look place when Jesus took our place, but additionally highlights an exchange that’s taken place over the past year or so within the leadership of Hillsong’s worship and creative arts ministry.

Last year Darlene Zschech and Joel Houston spoke at the Willow Creek Arts Conference sharing how Darlene, who for years has been the face of Hillsong music, has taken a step back in leadership over Hillsong’s worship and creative arts and transitioned leadership to Joel Houston and the younger generation of leaders at the church. It’s a beautiful picture of what the church should be doing: raising up, investing and empowering, and releasing the next generation church leaders. It was inspiring to hear… you can read my notes here, or check out Darlene’s book, The Great Generational Transition where she speaks more about this.

But back to the album… I had the chance to listen to it and check out the DVD last week, and while it’s hard to critique or review worship CDs, I’ll say this much: it’s fantastic and while it has the classic trappings of a Hillsong project, you can begin to hear the new song emerging from new songwriters and worship leaders, and it’s fantastic.

While the CD seems to be a seamless recording, it was actually recorded over multiple nights in Sydney and even jets over to the other side of the globe to Hillsong London.

Worship leaders Darlene Zschech, Reuben Morgan, and Joel Houston hold down the lead of the album along with Brooke Ligterwood, Ben Fielding, Matt Crocker, and Gio Galanti from Hillsong London.

A few highlights from the album:

  • Like Incense/Sometimes By Step: No joke, the instrumental part of this song is a small taste of what Heaven will sound like. I’m not kidding… I get goosebumps every time I listen to it. The lyrics to Like Incense, combined with Brooke Ligterwood’s vocals, and a throwback to the early 90s worship hit “Sometimes by Step” by Rich Mullins all culminate to make one of the standout moments on the CD.
  • The Father’s Heart ­– This song is one of my personal favorites and comes out of Hillsong London. The lyrics along passion coming from the crowd make this song one that will be stuck in your head all day long. I love it. I also love the woah-oh-oh’s!
  • Forever Reign and The One Who Saves – I’m sure these two songs will be the ones churches latch onto. They are both great corporate expressions of God’s greatness, and the energy coming from the crowd on both of these is infectious. The One Who Saves, especially, is one that I could probably sing for 10 minutes without stopping, declaring “His love endures forever!”
  • The rest are all great… these were just a few tracks that stood out to me!

A Beautiful Exchange features 12 new songs and a radio version of the song Forever Reign and is available on iTunes today. You can also stream it online for free via YahooMusic.

The bonus edition on iTunes features five videos from the DVD, which may be purchased via HillsongMusic.com or Amazon. The DVD includes four tracks from Hillsong London and a behind-the-scenes documentary.

Reuben Morgan and a team from Hillsong will be touring the USA in July and August this year (I’ll be seeing them when they are in Dallas at Fellowship Church)! If they are coming anywhere near you, it’s definitely worth the trip.

A Beautiful Exchange is a solid offering from Hillsong and, to me, signals the beginning of a new day and a new song for Hillsong Church… and I like what I’m hearing so far.

I’d love to share A Beautiful Exchange with you, so I’ll be giving away three copies of the bonus edition today at 11 AM, 2 PM and 5 PM CST today.*  All you need to do be entered to win is follow the instructions below:

  1. Tweet This: I just entered to win a copy of #ABeautifulExchange! Comment here and RT to enter: http://bit.ly/9LYvww
  2. Comment Below: With your Twitter handle [so I can verify you did the first step ] and share your favorite song from Hilsong.
  3. Check back at 11 AM, 2 PM, and 5 PM CST today: I’ll randomly choose someone to win!

UPDATE: Congrats to @colinharman, @erod26 and @countrycuban for snagging your copies! Thanks to all who participated. Support Hillsong and get your copy here!

* You must have a valid US iTunes account to win!

Worship//Service

by Tim Schraeder on 02/15/2010 in Music, Reviews with 2 Comments

Ok. So I’m going to tell you about the worship CD you haven’t heard of that you need to, k?

For the first five [and sometimes very awkward] years of my life as a church communications guy, I was priviledged to serve at Riverside Community Church in Peoria, Illinois. Riverside was planted in out of a church I grew up in back in August of 2000. It was an amazing opportunity to serve on staff there during some of the formative years of the church and to see it grow to expand its ministry through Dream Center Peoria. Riverside is truly a church that is making a difference and an impact in its community.

Leaving was definitely bittersweet… the opportunity to live in Chicago and work at Park was amazing, but leaving a place that had been home and had given me the opportunity and experience to grow in my gifts and talents was definitely not easy.

One of the things I loved [and miss] about Riverside was their worship. People worshipped God passionately there. And, in December, Riverside released their first worship CD, Worship//Service.

To be honest when first heard about the recording I was kind of unsure of what to think… I mean, it seems like everyone these days is recording something… but when I listened I was completely blown away. The music, the lyrics, the passion and heart behind this project shine through and it is honestly one of the best live worship recordings I’ve heard lately [besides Hillsong of course!].

Worship//Service was recorded live at Riverside and a majority of the tracks are originals, written by worship leader [and one of my best friends from back in Kindergarten] Austin Luhring.

I had the chance to ask Austin a bit about the project and am excited to share one of the tracks from Worship//Service with you!

Austin, before we get into the CD, share a little bit about your background and how you got involved leading worship…

Well, I got into the actual leading of worship when I was 17, close to 10 years ago now.  I just started to play guitar, learning chords as best I could from who ever as well as watching the worship leaders in church, where they put their hands etc. My youth pastor began to pour into me, giving me different opportunities to lead and play back up guitar.  Singing was never really strong or comfortable from what I can remember. I went on to serve at a church in Chicago for 5 years where God really allowed me to walk through the most trying years of my life as of yet.  It was in this time as a musician I developed loads but more importantly He was developing my Spirit to hear His voice, to be sensitive to His spirit and He REALLY removed the scales from eyes as to what “worship” really is.

He eventually pulled me back to Peoria where I’m from to lead our church, Riverside.

In hindsight, it’s so interesting to remember the hard stuff and realize that it was all preparation.  It was the Refiner doing His work.  He’s so good, so faithful.

Explain the title Worship//Service … what’s the story behind that?

Worship//Service really came out of a realization of how far the church’s perspective of true worship had gone from God’s desire.  We recently had a spiritual breakthrough in our church.  It’s not inner, it’s outer.  It’s not about us, it’s about Him.  It has everything to do with not us.  Through this whole process of our first recording He kept saying, “Serve!”  ”What you have done for the least of these, You have also done for Me”  We really want God’s heart.  There is no performance, there is only Presence.  That is the goal, the aim, the heart of worship!

The Dream Center is one of the biggest areas of serving and worshiping God that has been raised up out of the church.  It exists to meet the needs of the people of Peoria, there is housing, after school programs, food organizations, outreach.  You can find out more about what we do at www.dreamcenterpeoria.org

Worship is service.  Serving God, loving people, meeting needs.

What was the whole recording experience like? From the sound of the crowd on the CD, it seemed like it was epic.

We began planning about a year ago.  One night our pastor announced to the church we would be recording our first album, which took all of us by surprise. So we had just a few months to write a few more songs and work on arrangements. So after many different variations of a set list and the band finalized we began rehearsals about 3 months out.

We had the team lead worship for the 3 weekends of the whole “worship” series doing only the songs that were going to be recorded that way we had tons of time to work with each other, for the church to learn it all and to be getting excited about it all.

You could really sense the anticipation on the weekends leading up to the day of the recording.

The morning of, it was an amazing feeling to walk out in front of our entire church in the auditorium for the first time together.  One service, one body, ready and excited to sing and praise God.

We really have God to thank for the whole thing.  We did corrections on one bass line, one electric guitar lead, and one vocal.  Other than that, it is as it was!  That is our church, that is their voice.  It was such a privilege to lead it.  Oh and it was loud:)

For being a debut CD this is pretty incredible… what is your hope and prayer for this and what’s the possibility of future recordings?

My hope is just to really develop a culture here in Peoria.  I want to see Peoria, America, the world be won in the name of Jesus, for the sake of Jesus.  I hope that what the Spirit did in me will go out and do in others.  I believe other people will now write and go deeper in their relationship with Christ and as one voice we will lift up His praises.

As far as other recordings, absolutely.  I’m busy now writing and trying to write differently and deeply.  Just trying to please Him and allow the Spirit through us to draw God’s people unto Himself.

Well, thanks to the people at Riverside, I’m excited to share a track from Worship//Service with you, one of my favorites from the project called I Am Nothing.

Download Your Free Track Here

If you like what you hear, which I know you will!, then consider downloading the CD from iTunes!

The saying goes “if it plays in Peoria it will play anywhere…” and from the sound of it, what’s playing in Peoria is a new sound the Church needs to hear.

Spread the love!

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