"Woke up this morning from the clock of the ring"

Looking Beyond the Years

Lips Sweet as Candy
© 2025 R3Zondo

saw you dancin’ with the moon in your hair
laughin’ like you didn’t know I was there
baby, time stood still
like the jazz on your skin, i felt the thrill

your touch was a secret i hadn’t heard
like poetry tucked in a hummingbird
you leaned in slow
and whispered in a way only music knows

lips sweet as candy, stole my breath away
like a summer sax line that won’t fade
i was gone before your kiss hit
like a flugelhorn solo that won’t quit
baby, i’m yours, no need to plan me
just say the word, and you can have me
oh, you wrecked me so gently
with lips, sweet as candy

you move like a song that’s half undone
like a breeze caught under a setting sun
ain’t no chorus, just the ride
and i’d follow you into every tide

no rush, no maps, no reason why
just heartbeats under a velvet sky
i’d chase you blind
through every bend, girl, every time

lips sweet as candy, stole my breath away
like a trumpet line i beg to replay
i was lost in your soft hit
like a vinyl scratch that still fits
girl, you undo and you command me
just one touch and you expand me
oh, you break me so gently
with lips, sweet as candy

don’t need no fortune teller
or midnight preacher’s prayer
just the taste of you
and that music in the air

lips sweet as candy, sweeter than pain
made a melody run in my veins
i was yours from the first bit
now i’m breathless and i don’t quit
love me slow, love me grandly
like a horn in the night so sandy
you disarmed me, you unplanned me
with lips, sweet as candy

(Summary)

Lips Sweet as Candy, is one of those songs that came from a moment where time stopped. I imagined the feeling of falling in love mid song, where their kiss hits like a flugelhorn solo and everything changes. It’s tender, jazzy, and romantic in a way that lets the emotion breathe. This one’s all about getting swept up by someone who doesn’t even realize the spell they’re casting. It’s love as music, and I couldn’t resist writing it that way.

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Lips Sweet as Candy

You are my spring

Counting Every Blessing

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.”