DAVID CROWDER*BAND RELEASE FIFTH STUDIO ALBUM ‘CHURCH MUSIC’ OUT SEPTEMBER 22 VIA EMI’S sixstepsrecords/SPARROW RECORDS

DAVID CROWDER*BAND

RELEASE FIFTH STUDIO ALBUM
‘CHURCH MUSIC’
OUT SEPTEMBER 22 VIA EMI’S sixstepsrecords/SPARROW RECORDS
AFTER SELLING OVER ONE MILLION COPIES OF EARLIER ALBUMS

AMBIENT AND ETHEREAL NEW RECORD FEATURES BACKING VOCALS FROM
FLYLEAF’S LACEY MOSELY AND EISLEY’S DUPREE SISTERS

SET FOR EXTENSIVE FALL TOUR

DAVID CROWDER*BAND may very well be the biggest band you’ve never heard of. The six-piece have previously released four studio albums, selling over one million copies combined. During their last major tour, in support of 2007’s Remedy, the band sold out nineteen large clubs across the country including notable venues like New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom (see photo above), The Wiltern in Los Angeles and The Fillmore in San Francisco. And now they are set to release their fifth studio album on September 22, the ambient and ethereal CHURCH MUSIC (sixstepsrecords/Sparrow Records).

CHURCH MUSIC features seventeen compelling, inimitably progressive electronic rock tracks and runs an impressive 73 minutes long. “It’s our stimulus package,” jokes frontman DAVID CROWDER. “We’re doing our part.” With songs influenced by artists that range from Radiohead to Linkin Park, Portishead to Sigur Rós, CHURCH MUSIC may not be what you expect sonically when you think of one of Christian music’s leading bands. The album even includes a decidedly unique cover of hard rock act Flyleaf’s hit “All Around Me,” and features Flyleaf lead singer Lacey Mosely and the Dupree sisters from Eisley singing background vocals on various tracks.

CROWDER says, “If you have encountered our music, you know that there are a lot of cultural and current influences in it, so to put this music with that term [church music] does a number of things: It helps people understand what our intent is and it lets people understand that the idea of CHURCH MUSIC is really broad and diverse and to me, that’s really exciting.”

He continues, “The one thing non-Christians get perturbed about is that no one is being straightforward with the conversation and that’s when they feel like they’ve been had and go, ‘I fell in love with this band and now I find out they’re just trying to subvert my thinking with this propaganda.’ This project says what it is. It’s CHURCH MUSIC and if you’re straightforward with it, there’s beauty that’s available to people who may not profess the same beliefs.”

Standout offerings on the album include “Eastern Hymn,” “Oh, Happiness” and “God Almighty, None Compares.” For “Eastern Hymn,” CROWDER commissioned the translation of an ancient Chinese prayer book which he’d found last summer on the band’s world tour, and portions of the translated tome appear in the song’s chorus. “Oh, Happiness” sounds like it could have sprung from the minds of the MGMT lads and “has a lot of sunshine in it,” CROWDER enthuses. “God Almighty, None Compares,” is a favorite for Crowder because he loves “the guitar harmony…the guitarmony if you will, and shredding is involved which always makes me smile.” The most surprising album track may be the vocoder-heavy title track, which is “as close to Studio 54 as we could get,” the frontman says with a chuckle. “We wanted to put a party from Studio 54 on the record and I know its going to be really fun live. That song is sort of our pronouncement that CHURCH MUSIC helps us realign ourselves to some of the more beautiful things about our existence.”

Look for the Waco, TX-based DAVID CROWDER*BAND—CROWDER, guitarists JACK PARKER and MARK WALDORP, bassist MIKE DODSON, drummer JEREMY BUSH and electronic violinist MIKE HOGAN—to return to the road this fall. The extensive tour will see the band take a more intimate route than their 2007 tour, playing mostly churches across the country.

www.davidcrowderband.com
www.myspace.com/davidcrowderband

###