Grace Graber Brings Her Debut Album to Life with Live Record
'The Breakthrough Live' is available now
Posted: February 23, 2025, 5:00 PM | Category:New Releases Artist Tags: Grace Graber Source: Mary Nikkel Media
Grace Graber has released a reinvented take on her debut album with the infectiously energetic The Breakthrough Live, available on all major platforms now at https://slinky.to/TheBreakthrough.
"I wanted to really connect with the fans and invite them into the story of why I made the album," Grace Graber, a rising pop-punk songstress, explains. "The feedback I get most when I'm on stage is, 'Oh my gosh, I don't know how you have all that energy.'"
That energy is evident throughout the live album and video, even though Grace created it simultaneously with the studio version of the album. That dual creative process showcases the truth that Grace Graber is one of the hardest-working voices on stage right now. Her relentless work ethic and calling to speak hope to mental health struggles has carried her through a pop era and towards a punk rock rebirth.
She says, "I really wanted to drop the live album as the last hurrah to The Breakthrough, because I feel like I'm growing up. When The Breakthrough released, I started getting off my antidepressants, and I started feeling better. I was finally coping in a healthy manner. This live experience closes an era because it allows me to show the songs for what they are and let them go."
Those songs are at once both encouraging and thought-provoking. NewReleaseToday called the album "a wonderful balanced mix of so many styles coming together in a fun and powerful way to impact listeners with the truth that they belong and God isn't done in their lives."
JesusFreakHideout offers, "This is a meticulously crafted debut, from the lyrics to the musicality, and down to the track sequencing."
The Breakthrough Live takes fans just one step further into the world Graber has so carefully and lovingly created. For the video, Grace built the set herself, decking out Volt Coffee in Alabama. She played the album with a full band, drawing on the skills of Ross Black (guitar), David Roberts (drums) and Hayden Kane (bass). Andrew COJO mixed and engineered the project, and Ben Roberts and Jordan Lavagnino filmed the video. Adam LaVerdiere rounded out the team by manning the tracks.
"I think hearing those songs with a full band is going to help you realize exactly how I wanted the songs to sound like," Graber offers.
Fittingly, The Breakthrough Live releases just as the artist is playing more concerts than ever, opening The Variety Tour with Seventh Day Slumber (find those dates at gracegraber.com/tour). Firmly transitioning into owning the rock roots that inspired and impacted her personally as a teenager, Grace Graber is both celebrating the music she's made so far and eagerly looking ahead to revving up the heaviest elements of her sound.
"It's just authentically me. I'm just not trying to be someone else anymore," the singer and songwriter reflects.
Ultimately, that process of growth and confident claiming of personal healing is what Grace hopes to inspire in her listeners as well -- especially the many teenagers who have come to look up to her.
"I hope people see my performances and feel like, 'Wow, I want to be just like her when I grow up.' That's some of the feedback I get from teenage girls at my shows. They say, 'I want to be that confident when I'm older. I want to dance like that when I'm older,'" Grace says with emotion.
It's a fitting full-circle position for an artist who was impacted deeply by the Christian rock bands of the 2000s and 2010s -- bands like Hawk Nelson and Stellar Kart, who Grace says now text her to encourage her as peers. As she moves from streaming success and social media impact into live concert connection and a more mature sound, Grace is aware that she has taken the torch from the greats.
"I'm making way for this sound of Christian music to stay alive. In order to keep it alive, I just have to own it," she says frankly. "I've built this momentum, and now I feel like I'm finally going to sit in a place in people's minds where when they think of that sound, they think of Grace Graber. And when they think of who pioneered this punk sound back, they're going to think of me. I'm the little sister to all these bands. That genome, that genetic factor inside me is always going to be there."
Grace Graber concludes with her signature vigor and enthusiasm: "I'm not going to stop. If I stop, then I fail. And if I don't stop, I win."
