All Above North How Great It Is To Be Broken Northwest Records (2017) www.allabovenorth.com By Bob Marovich If Joy Division had made a Christian album, it might sound like How Great It Is To Be Broken. All Above North’s latest album is equal parts retro ‘80s and current-day EDM. Prayerful conversations with God—some cheerful, some expressing anxiety—receive ample helpings of electric confetti, at times bright and cheerful and at other times intense and dramatic. And thank God, the synth sounds like a synth and not like an artificial brass section or violins. From Sydney, Australia, the Christian indie rock band All Above ...

By Bob Marovich Hillsong – Let Hope Rise, the music documentary about the history and phenomenon that is Sydney, Australia’s Hillsong, “the biggest band you’ve never heard of,” hits U.S. theaters September 16. JGM spoke by telephone recently with Joel Houston of Hillsong UNITED and the film’s director, Michael John Warren, whose prior projects include documentaries on Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj and the large-scale event film Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway. JGM: How did the idea of the film come about? MJW: To be candid, the idea came from some producers who brought it to me. I’ve made a lot ...