Advent is not a word you hear outside of traditional and denominational Christian settings a lot. But as the recent millenium has brought so many changes, we see much of the non-traditional and non-liturgical church groups reaching into the ancient traditions of the Christian church and mining the wisdom of our forebearers in the faith. Advent literally means "coming" and refers to the season of weeks that precede the celebrated birth of Christ and God's coming earth in the flesh as the Emmanuel (literally "God with us"). The Advent as a Christian season of reverence and anticipation was only exceeded in importance by the reflective season of Lent that leads up to the holy week of the death and resurrection of Christ.
Musical worship of advent often focuses on the anticipation of the coming savior, the light rising in the darkness of this world, and preparation of our hearts for His appearing. It is in that spirit that the recent EP "Light Has Come" seems to present it’s finely crafted songs for the Advent season.
WorshipTogether releases the "Light Has Come" EP with six modern worship songs that focus on the light, hope, glory and joy of the advent season not by headlining it with artists. Instead it chose to release a compact collection of very focused songs from its songwriters, keeping the arrangements and presentation accessible and reproducible for churches. Recorded crisply, but with the songs as the focus, one gets the idea this was meant more as a resource to churches coming to Advent than to consumers looking for radio hits.
In fact, even the keys and arrangements of the songs flow seamlessly from one song to another. I was able to sit down with my guitar and play along with each and every song the first time through. Five of the 6 songs were keyed either in F or C (very complimentary keys), making it great to use these songs together in a worship set.
Let’s dive into the songs.
The first song "Let The World Sing Gloria" is a modern song rendering language and context for the traditional phrase "Gloria in excelsis Deo" (which is Latin for "Glory to God in the highest"). Musically, it is an ebbing verse, vaulting chorus and rising bridge which brings the ancient phrase to life. Melodic, well written lyrics and hook laden chorus, this is the best song on the EP. You really should consider this song for the upcoming season- it is excellent!
"Newborn King" is the second track and gives a medium tempo groove to celebrating the coming of the Christ child. Again the musical affinity is crisply acoustic/rock and easy to incorporate into a modern worship set. The lyrics continue to be the language of advent and anticipatory Christmas season. Another good candidate for your Sunday mornings.
The title track "Light Has Come" is a country-ish sounding ballad that reminds me of something from Vineyard Music's "roots worship" sound with Ryan Delmore- somewhere between acoustic/pop and Mumford & Sons. Lyrically, the song focuses a modern spin on the story of Jesus' light come to the broken and weak of our earthly society and bringing God's glory through such humility.
Track five is the pop-driven "End of Exile", the most progressive recording on this collection. Well done, this song soars on power-chords flooding the chorus. It is comprised of a terse lyrical style, leaving lithe phrases such as its compact chorus:
Glorious miracle here is the end of exile
God the invisible flooding the world with light
Definitely a song to look at for the Advent season.
I will leave tracks 4 and 6 to the reader to discover, as they are laid out simply and clearly in easily reproduced arrangements and keys.
Overall, I found the Advent EP "Light Has Come" to be delightful. I especially loved tracks 1, 2 and 5, as noted above and would recommend them to any church looking for new music for the season.
"Light Has Come" find it at Amazon or iTunes
For those who use online planning, you can also find the songs from this album, the full audio, chord charts and lyrics online in WorshipTeam.com.
If you are wondering where you might find some great new songs for the Christmas/Advent season, and you are in contemporary worship context, you should definitely consider the songs on this new album from WorshipTogether, "Light Has Come".
worshiping Him!
Kim Gentes