Released 27 years ago yesterday, this is the fourth album from Joy Electric, the long-time electronic band primarily composed of Ronnie Martin. Ronnie builds whole musical landscapes with his synthesizers and sings over them, and usually they are very poetic, sometimes fairy tale stories, and there's definitely a bit of that on this album too. But as the album title might suggest, Ronnie wears his Christian faith on his sleeve for this album. As usual, it's synthesizer-driven pop with a bit of a punk ethos, but songs like "Children Of The Lord" and "Lift Up Your Hearts" have lyrics that are more overtly Christian and might be played on Christian radio at the time. Even a cover of a Keith Green song is included on this album. There's definitely a bunch of songs that are less "Christian" and just more normal Joy Electric, like "Disco For A Ride", "Synthesized I Want You Synthesized" and "I Sing Electric". It's a fun album and maybe one of their more accessible releases, in my opinion.

Release Year: 1999
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Released 30 years ago sometime this year, this is the second solo album by the multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. He's been playing instruments such as keyboards, accordion, and guitar for over 50 years now, and is known as a member of the Phil Keaggy Band in the '70s, but is probably most well-known as a part of Emmylou Harris's live backing band, The Red Dirt Boys. He's also played on hundreds of albums as a studio musician, so if it's recorded in Nashville, he might have played on it. I have only really gotten into Phil's solo music in the last decade, but I really like this album. It's a fun bit of rock, and Phil Madeira sings and plays all the instruments except drums on this. The title track is a nice blues tune, while some other songs like "Jagged Heart" and "A Girl Named Hope" lean a bit more country. These songs tell stories of others and struggle with his imperfections as well as a few love songs. It's an honest and raw album and it's very well-done. This album doesn't seem to be on streaming currently, but it looks like you can find it digitally on Bandcamp or you could find an old CD copy, maybe. Phil Madeira is also working on a crowd-funding campaign to release two new albums of Americana music on CD and vinyl, so if you like his music, please help him make these happen—only a few days left to help.

Release Year: 1996
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"Meaningless / It's all meaningless." Released 33 years ago yesterday, this is the first album from this Christian rock band that went on to become a worldwide pop sensation in the late '90s for "Kiss Me" and a series of covers. The duo of Matt Slocum's songwriting and musicianship along with Leigh Bingham Nash's powerful vocals make for a dynamic duo that has kept this band recording and performing for decades. This album is probably their most Christian release, with lyrics that are pulled right from The Bible and classic poets and thinkers. Their rock sound here is a bit basic and the guitars pretty jangly, which is not my favorite sound, but it's a decent debut from a band that will go far. I'm glad they kept at it and I hope to see them play live sometime. Come to Minneapolis!

Release Year: 1993
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Released 25 years ago this past Friday, this is the first live album by Sonicflood and contains mostly live versions of the worship songs they had on their self-titled debut two years earlier. By the time this released, the band had mostly dissolved and been re-formed by the last remaining member, but this live recording from a Christian music festival in Amsterdam in summer 1999 was released. The band, led by worship leader and artist Jeff Deyo, leads the audience through their two original songs early in the set and then performs covers of popular '90s worship songs from other artists, some of which were on their album and some not. New songs include "Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble" by Delirious? and praise classics like "Lord, I Lift Your Name On High" and "You Are Worthy Of My Praise". The songs pretty seamlessly flow from one to another, and there are moments of spontaneous worship, unplanned jams with prayer. As with their debut, these are not the simple, worship versions on the Hosanna and Vineyard albums, but souped-up, guitar-laden rock/pop versions while still maintaining a worshipful tone. I honestly didn't pick up this album until a few years ago, and it's not required listening in my opinion, but it is an interesting moment in time captured here as the Christian music industry moved from feel-good radio pop/rock to being mostly modern music for church services. Sonicflood and groups like Passion as well as, in the few years after this, artists like Michael W. Smith brought the music of Matt Redman and church collectives like Vineyard Music to a much bigger audience, which in turn brought the music into churches more. The music of Sonicflood was never my favorite and they didn't really stick around in this form long, but they caught a wave of music trends and were riding it well for a moment here.

Release Year: 2001
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