Unspoken Releases 1st New Studio Album in Over 5 Years, "IV," Sept. 13

By Timothy Yap Aug 19, 2024 12:13 PM EDT

Centricity Music band Unspoken releases its first new studio album in over five years, IV, Sept. 13. The foundational, undeniable love of God that is not changed by an ever-shifting culture nor the inevitable storms of life is the theme of the band's 10-song, fourth studio project and long-awaited follow-up to 2019's Reason.

IV's anchor track, "What He Says About You," expands on that seminal topic of God's love by challenging the false labels society places on us. Thinking about his young daughters and the message he wants etched on their impressionable hearts, Unspoken's Chad Mattson wrote the driving, guitar-heavy selection with his bandmate Jon Lowry alongside songwriters Ethan Hulse, Tyrus Morgan, Tedd T, Tony Wood and Chris Stevens. Mattson wrestled with the lyrics over the course of six months to get to the core of our identity in Christ, ultimately reminding listeners we are loved, chosen, held, forgiven and treasured by the Creator of the universe.

"It's really hard to differentiate the truth from how we feel or who culture says we should be. So I hope this song just washes over people's spirits and minds and hearts, reinforcing what the truth really is," Mattson says. "There's only one voice that matters, and it's the voice of God."

As he grappled with the song's lyrics, the father of three realized he was writing them for himself as much as his children. "The same stuff that's affecting my daughters is affecting me. I allow a lot more things from the outside world to inform my identity than I do Scripture. I often find myself on my phone more than I'm in the Word," he admits. "I think it's our job as parents to help our kids navigate these things and also limit, not only our children's exposure to it, but our own."

Like "What He Says About You," the selections on IV feel like they were written in the midst of real life. Penning nearly 100 contenders over the course of the past five years, Mattson reflects, "I think we've just tried to write the songs that were in front of us."

One of those, "More Church Than Church," hinges on Mattson's continued sobriety journey that began more than two decades ago. The cleverly penned track features country music A-lister Walker Hayes, who - like Mattson - has been vocal about being in active recovery.

Other standouts on the album include the pop-centric "Loved By You," the celebratory "Love Is Everything We Need," which affirms that loving our enemies is always the best course of action, "Say The Word," a worshipful offering that calls us to bring whatever faith we can muster and place it in the capable hands of Jesus, and "Where My Joy Comes From."

"Our job as believers is to reflect Jesus to people, and one of the greatest ways we do that is through the joy we have in whatever circumstance we're in," Mattson says of the standout original that lives up to its name. "The world wants to tell us our joy comes from our circumstance, but we know that's not true. How we live and how we respond to both joy and chaos are some of the greatest testimonies to the goodness of God."

The heartbeat of IV is that we're all loved, we're all chosen, we're all enough. The full, IV track listing follows:

01) Hard Times

02) What He Says About You

03) More Church Than Church

04) Loved By You

05) God Help Me

06) Where My Joy Comes From

07) Love Is Everything We Need

08) Hold On Take Heart

09) Never Running Out

10) Say The Word

For more Unspoken music, tour, news and information, go to https://unspokenmusic.com/, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Pandora.