To understand what makes Rend Collective so unique and special among worship artists, you have to go back—way back. Some 1500 years ago, the Irish missionary St. Brendan sailed from the Irish coast without maps or any clue where he was headed. “The only thing he knew was that God had called him,” says bandleader and drummer Gareth Gilkeson. And so Brendan chose to “go”: a bold act of faith that not only echoes the album title As Family We Go, but also speaks volumes about the songs.

It also tells you a lot about Rend Collective, a Northern Irish band that has ventured from its native land at the beckoning of an invisible hand. And they’re doing it differently than most other artists before them, living and working—singing and sharing the laundry duties—as a tight-knit family. It’s just the foundation to foster faith and community through music, and forms the heart and strength behind their latest effort.

And my, how this musical family has grown. This young, freewheeling band has seen so much recent success: from opening for the likes of Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and Kari Jobe, to landing Christian radio hits such as the revival hymn, “Build Your Kingdom Here.”

The next logical step, then, was to hunker down in their private studio and work at a brisk, breathtaking pace—cutting the eleven tracks on As Family We Go in two weeks. As Gilkeson puts it: “There wasn’t much time for sleep—just going for it.”

In this case, sleep deprivation yielded divine inspiration. Then again, how many bands brave a family pilgrimage the way Rend Collective does? Or proudly present themselves as examples of a self-styled genre, “celebration music”?

Though that describes the sound on the new disc—a joyful mélange of foot-stomping acoustic grooves and full-on pop pockets worthy of U2—it only hints at the spiritual thread that pulls everything together.

“We want to make music that is journey music,” says singer Chris Llewellyn. “We notice that sometimes music is seen as the end goal, that a worship encounter is having a music experience. But that’s not really it; it should be the soundtrack to mission: community living, the soundtrack to a meaningful worship experience.”

For a band named Unspoken, Chad Mattson, Mike Gomez, Jon Lowry, and Ariel Munoz have been making a lot of noise. With two straight Top 5 singles (Who You Are and Lift My Life Up) and successful tours with bands like Sanctus Real and Big Daddy Weave, Unspoken has built steady momentum through their last two EPs, even as they’ve grown as a band. Lead singer Chad Mattson reflected on this season of growth. “The more you work on something and devote yourself to a craft, I think the better you become at it, especially as you are surrounding yourself with people who are good at it.”

The timing is therefore perfect for the band’s first full-length album with Centricity Music, “Unspoken.” Mattson and the band jumped at the chance to release a complete, full-length album with all the elements in place. “We got to complete the pieces of what a record could and should have. We have a couple of acoustic drop-down pieces that we love, we have upbeat stuff, we have a radio mix. That’s exciting to me, how diverse the record is.” It’s a diverse record befitting a diverse band, which features members from Maine, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. The mix lends subtle flavors to the music beneath strong pop sensibilities.

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