Awakening
Atmospheres have appeared at the top of several Christian music charts in 2011 and 2012 with the singles "Heaven's Symphony" and "Burn for You" from their first album peaking at number one on the CRW Global charts. Atmospheres 2nd album titled "Awakening" is a live offering of praise and worship music that turns from the highly produced first studio album to capturing several live worship events they call "Encounter" worship nights. They were recorded live at the intimate Diana Wortham Theatre in downtown Asheville with hundreds of worshippers in attendance. Atmospheres continue to break the barriers of modern worship music with "Awakening". What you hear on Awakening is set to follow in the first albums foot steps. Thousands of churches around the world are playing the songs recorded on this project, I highly recommend it. Review Stylistically speaking, if members of Coldplay were to assemble a side project with members of Angels & Airwaves, and the resulting album were produced by Bono, you’d have something like ‘Atmospheres’, the first album produced by Australian, Steve Deal and Canadian, Stephen von Heyking together in a creative hotspot in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Atmospheres was formed by Deal and von Heyking and unassumingly obliterates every stereotype conjured by descriptives like ‘first album’ and ‘worship music‘ with songs like ‘Across The Earth’, an epic and sweeping declaration of faith and vision, evoking majestic visuals with its huge lyrics and even bigger production, and ‘Crazy’ - an ethereal rocker with the reckless passion and dramatic insistence of an April thunderstorm. The tracks ‘Love Is Here’ and ‘Heaven’s Symphony’ resonate with an intensity that is immediately immersive and intimate, balancing astonishing songwriting simplicity with compelling and complex arrangements. The project is a master class in texture, displaying an unparalleled depth of artistry in its composition and performance. This collective of musicians and singers have gathered here from Sydney, Calgary, Atlanta, LA etc and have succeeded in accomplishing precisely the objective they set out to achieve, that of creating a worship experience for churches globally and then capturing what has been born in their own times of worship on a cd that allows people around the world to use this soundtrack in worship where ever they find themselves. ‘Atmospheres’ is unquestionably anointed, inspired and distinctly excellent by every standard of measure. It is an innovative, groundbreaking, an essential statement, unwavering in its insistence that music intended as worship must be expressed with a skill, fervor, and creativity mirroring that of the One it is intended to honor.