Elevation Rhythm isn’t trying to hype up the crowd—they’re trying to rewire how the church thinks about worship.
Their new album, Victory Lap, is rooted in a radical idea: Christians don’t fight for victory. They fight from it. The war is over. The outcome isn’t in question. So what does it sound like when worship starts from a place of celebration instead of desperation?
That question became the heartbeat of Victory Lap, a noisy, genre-blurring, intentionally chaotic worship project that trades polish for power. There are no formulas here. Some tracks don’t even have a lead vocal. Others were built on lunch-table pencil beats. One even includes real chants from a South African boys’ school.
“We get to run the lap,” says Josh Holiday, one of the album’s primary creators. “Because Jesus already won.”
That concept—living from victory, not toward it—shaped not just the lyrics but the entire spiritual framework behind the album. Before recording a single note, the team fasted together, spent weeks in Scripture, and reframed the idea of communion as what they called a “victory meal.”
“We were thinking about altar calls,” Holiday says. “We kept asking, if someone brings in anxiety or shame or addiction, and they leave carrying the exact same thing, what are we even doing? The enemy’s not afraid of church if we’re not walking out changed.”
But offering people freedom requires giving them something to walk out with. That’s what Victory Lap tries to do. Every track is written as a kind of exchange—trading despair for something defiant, pain for praise, and shame for something you can scream with your whole chest.
Take “Goodbye Yesterday,” with the line “dancing on the grave that I once lived in.” Or “Sing If You Love,” where the lyric “I have a million reasons I shouldn’t be here” has already sparked emotional responses on tour.
“It’s wild,” Holiday says. “You’ve got this upbeat track, but people are having really intimate, emotional moments with it. It’s not somber, but it is sacred.”
The album’s sound matches its ambition. Holiday says he originally wanted to make a live record, but pivoted after getting inspired by everything from English soccer chants to old-school hymnals.
“I wanted it to sound like more than 10 people were singing at once,” he says. “Some of the tracks don’t even have a lead vocal. It’s just the crowd. Because the songs don’t really work unless everyone joins in.”
One of those crowds was recorded in an unlikely place. While workshopping vocal ideas, the team stumbled across a video of students chanting at a boys’ school in South Africa. One member of the band recognized it—it was his alma mater. A few conversations later, he was on a flight back to record the real thing.
“That’s what you hear on the album,” Holiday says. “It’s their voices. Real chants, recorded in South Africa. We just thought—what would it sound like if a youth service felt like that?”
That blend of chaos and clarity runs through the entire record. On one track, the percussion is literally just pencils tapping on a desk—a nod to Holiday’s earliest beats made in middle school. Other tracks lean into ‘80s ballad energy, complete with massive choruses and dual drummers.
But the most unconventional element might be what’s missing: polish. This isn’t a “cool worship album” with slick production and radio edits. It’s raw, messy and fully communal by design.
“Victory isn’t just mountaintop moments,” Holiday says. “It’s getting back up again. It’s faithfulness. It’s submission. That’s what we wanted this to sound like.”
The project comes on the heels of Elevation Rhythm’s tour with Forrest Frank, which they describe as one of the most meaningful experiences they’ve had. “It was multigenerational,” Holiday says. “You’d see six-year-olds and 60-year-olds. Families were getting healed. And every night was all about Jesus. That was the goal from the top down.”
Later this year, Rhythm will headline their first solo tour and continue releasing new music—including a long-teased singer-songwriter project (“sad girl fall vibes”) and a Christian house music set that Holiday says is “just pure vibes.”
But Victory Lap isn’t just another release. It’s a shift. A marker. A statement of purpose that could only have come from a group willing to throw out the worship rulebook and start over—no lead vocal, no safety net, no formulas.
“We’re not trying to repeat what we’ve done,” Holiday says. “We’re asking, what does it sound like to paint Jesus in a new color? What does it sound like to tell the Gospel in a way that makes you want to join in?”
If the answer is chaos, South African gang vocals and a few broken pencils—so be it.
Because the lap has already started. All that’s left is to run it.
