I’ve been blessed by many new musicians who bring a fresh perspective to worship over the years. Stepping into the last quarter of the year, I ran into another one of these amazing musicians.
Laity is a worship collective who are dedicated to spreading the love of God through music and art. Their debut release— Still —came out back in 2018. Two years later, they are back with LET YOURSELF BE LOVED which dropped back in May 2020.
Falling Up kicks off this journey; a dreamy indie pop song with warm synths and steady electronic drums. The song focuses on the deity of Jesus and our reverent worship of him, drawing lyrical inspiration from Revelation 4:10. The Way (You Love) is a soothing dream pop tune with simple guitar strums and catchy synth loops in the chorus.
YLIOF (or Your Love Is On Fire) is a spacey yet upbeat track. Lyrically, it is very simple and repetitive, alluding to God’s love burning within us. Spirit Come is a delicious mix of indie pop and ambient synth-wave influences. The song is a prayer to God, asking His Spirit to fill the earth.
The title track, LET YOURSELF BE LOVED, is quite progressive. Starting with simple acoustic rhythms and building up to the soothing synths. Lyrically, the song is rendered with Jesus in the first person, especially in the chorus with the words, “you don’t know my heartbeat/If you think that I’ll forget you/I’ll love you and I don’t regret these nails/I chose to save you/I am not your failures/I’m Your love, I am Your Savior/It’s not based on your behaviour/I will be with you forever”
Love Is Christ sounds exactly like the title suggests, it lists the attributes love and equates them to Christ. The song draws inspiration from 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew 16:18 and other verses of scripture. love invites is a short interlude and acts as a B-side or continuation of the title track, expressing Jesus’ love of us.
Eternally has my favourite lyrics on the album with a chorus that says, “And by Your blood/I am redeemed/You save me, I’m Yours eternally/Here am I, Your face I seek/So shape me, I’m Yours eternally”. Structurally, this song is the one most reminiscent of modern contemporary worship tunes.
EDEN is the most upbeat track on the album leaning heavily on more conventional electropop beats and pronounced synths. Close To You is a lovely ballad created by atmospheric soundscapes. It is an effective album closer expressing longing and desire to be closer to God.
When done right, there is beauty in simplicity and Laity leans into this quite heavily on this album. It is evident that they set out to create a sonic atmosphere that is dreamy, spacey and intimate for worship. On this front, they were successful.
My slight issue with this is that I believe that they made some sacrifices in the lyrical department in exchange for this atmosphere. With that in mind, I recognize that this is their second release and as a relatively new collective, they have a long road of learning, creating and growing ahead of them.
In the end, I like this project. It has a runtime of about 32 minutes which works perfectly for the type of album that it is because it encourages repeated listening in loops.
Laity has something unique going for them and I cannot wait to see what they do next.