Charlotte, North Carolina's Elevation Worship has been making a big name for themselves in recent years. Elevation Church's worship band has become just as big, and in some cases maybe even surpassed, their contemporaries in Hillsong, Bethel, and the like. The Midnight EP released a bit surprisingly after 2018's Hallelujah Here Below and this year's Paradoxology. The EP offers up a set of five live worship songs ready to be injected into any church's worship services. I got pretty excited about this release the first time I heard "See a Victory" on the day it released. It was a powerful song that I immediately introducted to my own church's worship team. That excitement finally led to the entire EP's release.

"Gone" opens the EP as a huge sounding number with even bigger drums. The song simply proclaims the freedom found in Christ. Chris Brown sings, "I'm gonna live like my chains are gone. Gone! Now my sin is dead and gone and I sing hallelujah. Done; done! He is risen it is done and I sing hallelujah." "It is So" is a beautiful song led by Tiffany Hammer and flows nicely into the lead single. Brown returns to lead "See a Victory" in what has been my favorite worship song of 2019 by a longshot. This is a proclamitive anthem that declares that we will see a victory in our lives through Jesus Christ. It's a powerful song that people seem to be drawn to in a big way. The lead switches to Jonsal Barrientes for "Love Won't Give Up." As you can can guess by the title, the lyrics are about how the love of Christ never leaves or forsakes us. Barrientes sings, "No matter how far I run; I run into your Love." The first four songs on Midnight run pretty much the standard length -- which is impressive for a live worship setting -- but "With You" is a more in-depth time of worship. Tiffany Hammer returns on leads and her passion bleeds through into vocals as her voice ranges from pretty and dainty to gritty and raspy (in a really good way). Her vocals are somewhat reminicsent of a Lacey Sturm all around. The song ends with audience still in worship.

Midnight EP is a really solid modern worship recording. It's so easy to get flooded by these yearly releases from mega-church worship bands, but Elevation has been on the leading edge of those bands recently. They seem to be more willing to experiment musically (as evidenced in Paradoxology) and have been releasing truly meaningful and worshipful material. If you are a church worship leader, or a fan of modern worship music, I would highly recommend a listen to this EP if you aren't already very familiar with its songs. All five of these tracks could be incorporated into a worship set and can be pulled off even if you aren't using multitracks. Here's hoping the Elevation team continues to write worship songs like these to lift up and praise our Creator.

- Review date: 11/11/19, written by Michael Weaver of Jesusfreakhideout.com