Blog Archive for March 2025

Album Of The Day: Rick Elias & The Confessions by Rick Elias & The Confessions

Album Art of Rick Elias And The Confessions's self-titled album - A mostly desaturated photo of a man standing next to a busy city street, shown from the waist up in a leather jacked and with long, dark curly bangs and long hair in the back. Behind him, we can see the blur of a car moving past. In the top right, printed on top of the photo's sky portion is a black rectangle with a dark blue, slighly-purple hairline inside the square. The artist name 'Rick Elias' is printed in the majority of the same blue, and 'And The Confessions' is in much smaller, aqua blue print at the bottom of the rectangle.

I believe this album was released this month 35 years ago. Rick Elias & The Confessions is a really good rock album I only recently started listening to. I had known of Rick Elias as a member of Rich Mullins's band and Rick's powerful vocals on the Mullins record released posthumously, The Jesus Record. But you might be more familiar with his songs he wrote for the soundtrack of the 1996 film "That Thing You Do!" and the movie's fictional band "The Wonders". Rick's first rock album definitely has some spiritual language, but it's mostly about Elias's personal experiences so I think it's an album that even a non-believer who likes some late '80s/early '90s rock will enjoy.

Release Year: 1990
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Album Of The Day: Welcome To The Bloodline by Elle Limebear

Album Art of Elle Limebear's Welcome To The Bloodline album - A brightly colored photo of a woman sitting at a large picnic table outdoors. The table looks to be in a yard with a tree on the right and an old shed of some sort on the left, plus a fence running between those, and in the far background, past a field, is a line of forest with blue sky above. The woman is sitting on the far side of the table with a red shirt and long brown hair, with a bit of a quizzical look towards the camera. On her side of the table, she has silverware on a napkin and a comically large cooked egg, bigger than a plate would be. On the side of the table close to the camera, there's an egg still in a shell on an egg cup and plate, with some sort of biscuit on the plate and silverware on a napkin to the right.

Released brand new today, this is the second pop album from English artist Elle Limebear. This album is mostly chill pop with a bit of a dance influence, though it's never an intense club track. I love her lyrics here about personal insecurities and struggles with songs like "Vulnerable" and "Bye Fear". Then there are other songs that are more spiritual in nature, like "What A Friend" and "Simple Song". This album definitely points heavily to Jesus and Elle's passion and heart shines through the music. I've been looking forward to a new album from Elle Limebear, and this is definitely meeting my expectations.

Release Year: 2025
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Album Of The Day: The Eleventh Hour by Jars Of Clay

Album Art of Jars of Clay's The Eleventh Hour album - A photo the sun setting down at the end of a long street lined with tall buildings, maybe in a place like New York City. It's taken from high up and far away so it's not too easy to make out details, but cars can be seen on the street, though from how small they are, it's hard to tell what time period the photo was taken in. Both sides of the photo are black, and the buildings make a bit of a cavern for the sun to shine through. There is a bunch of lens flares across the photo. In the bottom left, the band's name is in smaller, orange letters with faded edges, and the album title is below that with negative spacing between the letters, the letters actually overlap. Each word is in progressively whiter color and a large, sans-serif font.

Released on this day 23 years ago, this is the fourth studio album from rock/pop/Americana band Jars of Clay. It's not my favorite of their albums, but they also don't have a bad album either. The band stays squarely in the pop/rock territory on this album, with songs like "I Need You" and "Something Beautiful" being more pop and songs like "Disappear" and "Revolution" being more rock. In the song's lyrics, they definitely have lots of spiritual imagery, but also focus on relationships among people and getting to know, understand and love each other. It's a great album to listen through and showcases the band's excellent musicianship.

Release Year: 2002
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Album Of The Day: Borderland by John Mark McMillan

Album Art of John Mark McMillan's Borderland album - A photo of a black panther ceramic statue on a white background, with only a very soft shadow below it and to the left of it. At the top, centered in small golden letters is the artist's name, and on the bottom in gold letters rotated 180 degrees is the album name in the same lettering.

Released on this day 11 years ago, this is the fourth studio album by John Mark McMillan and one of my favorite albums of the 2010s. To me, this album rocks, but maybe it's more of a soft rock. There's no walls of guitars here, but there is pounding drums that sound amazing. Piano, strings, guitars and more mix with the drums, bass and John Mark's vocals, sometimes a deep baritone and sometimes a soaring falsetto. John Mark McMillan is mostly known in Christian music circles, though most of his music is not meant for singing at church services. Lyrically, there's lots of spiritual language, but the songs are exploring spiritual concepts and the nature of life, not just putting scriptures to music. I really love every song and the whole vibe of this album, and it continues to be an album I listen to often. I was really excited to help the making of this album by supporting his crowd-funding campaign as it was being made and I couldn't be happier with the result!

Release Year: 2014
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Album Of The Day: Army Of Bones by Army Of Bones

Album Art of Army Of Bones's self-titled album - A painting of a naked person's back from the waist up, and the person is hunched over and holding their chest. Brown hair can be seen at the top of the spine, leaning away from the photo and the person's left hand is reaching around to the back of the neck. The hand has bright red coloring on it; for some reason their fingers are bloody at the ends. The right hand's fingers can be seen clutching the right shoulder. The background is brush strokes of brown with little golden threads mixed in. At the top, above the person's head, the band name is printed in white in all caps, with the 'of' being smaller and the 'o' in 'Bones' has a line through it.

Released on this day 8 years ago, Army Of Bones is the first and only album so far from this English rock group. In 2009, the rock/worship band delirious? played their last gig, and front man Martin Smith of course continued to write music, though with other individuals and groups. With a new group of musicians, Martin and company recorded this album and rocked a few clubs in the UK on limited dates in the late 2010s while Smith also released solo pop/worship albums. This is a quality rock album, with soaring guitars and the occasional keys, an ever-present bass end, and excellent drums, plus Martin's vocals in the mix, sometimes a whisper, and sometimes a yell. Lyrically, it's a lot of love songs, probably most written to God, though in some cases you might not be able to tell if it's that or to a lover. The first two songs that were released before the album came out were "Batteries" and "River", and I think they're the most rockin' part of the album. And I'm a sucker for a six-minute, epic closing track like "The Day The Fire Went Out". I hope this isn't the only Army Of Bones album that we get, but I don't hear much in the rumor mill about another one.

Release Year: 2017
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Album Of The Day: Men And Angels Say by Ashley Cleveland

Album Art of Ashley Cleveland's Men And Angels Say album - In the middle is what looks to be a photo of a white woman sitting on a wood floor taken from above. She is looking off to the left. Above this is a painted a brown, jagged line that kinda builds a roof over her or something. On the right edge of that line is painted black and the album title is printed there. And around the whole thing is a painted circle, making it look like some sort of porthole or spyglass or something. Above the photo of the woman's lower body is a black painted line and the artist name is printed there.

Released 20 years ago last month, one of my favorite vocalists of all time released this album of all hymns. It's hymns that most Americans are familiar with, but done in a beautiful Gospel rock style. I like her original songs a bit more than this, but it's fun to hear her amazing vocals shine on these hymns. Her husband Kenny Greenberg also does great work on guitar and as co-producer plus Steve Winwood joins Ashley on "I Need Thee Every Hour". A few of Ashley Cleveland's albums have had a hymn or Gospel song on them, and it is a treat to hear her sing more of the great hymns.

Release Year: 2005
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Album Of The Day: The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd

Album Art of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon album - Most of it is a black background. In the middle, is a black triangle with an inner glow coming from the edges. On the left side, a thin line of white cuts through the black. Inside the triangle, the white spreads out to be about 10x wider on the right side. And once it hits the edge of the triange, it's now larger lines of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

I'll admit, I've not listened to all the classics in modern music. About 20 years ago, I think I first heard a reggae cover of this album called Dub Side Of The Moon with a friend before I heard this album. But I found the cover album so interesting, I had to hear the original, so I bought a CD of Pink Floyd's album shortly thereafter. Released on this day 52 years ago, this is one of the most well-known albums from a legendary English rock band, Pink Floyd. Many of the songs such as "Time" and "Money" talk about universal themes and sound like pretty standard rock music. Other tracks, like the opening parts of "Speak To Me/Breathe" and "On The Run", are more experimental, more instrumental and using synthesizers and other things not-so-standard for rock bands to use. The band even performed the whole album on tour before the album came out. This album is definitely a part of rock music history, and is designed to be listened to the whole way through as the songs work really well together.

Release Year: 1973
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