Blog Archive for May 2025

Album Of The Day: Roaring Lambs by Various Artists

Album Art of Various Artists album titled Roaring Lambs - On a dark brown, nearly black background taking up the bottom four fifths, is the title of the album in the middle and a block of all the artists and bands involved at the bottom. In the top quarter, on the right there's a photo of a group of about 10 lambs on the right, and one lamb on the left with an orange circle printed around its head. Just above where the lambs are standing is an orange gradient, some sort of sky, assumingly.

Robert (Bob) Briner was mostly known as an experienced sports manager and TV producer, but to the Evangelical Christian world, he was also known for his writings, like the book Roaring Lambs which encouraged Christians to be "salt and light" to the world—to be in the world and a part of the culture's conversation and formation. Released 25 years ago yesterday, this album brought some of music's most prominent Christian artists who were inspired by Briner's writings to write new songs on this theme, and for at least a few years, these songs were only available on this album. The only song co-written and co-performed by Christian pop kings Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman is on here, plus excellent songs from Jars of Clay, PFR, Burlap To Cashmere, and Sixpence None The Richer. The album has a lot of variety, from the classic rock of Ashley Cleveland signing with Michael Tait, the African sounds of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and a rare song from Steve Taylor, who was much more busy running the record label that put this album out at this time to record a new album. It was also cool to see some artists not traditionally known in Christian music circles like Over The Rhine and Bill Mallonee & Vigilantes Of Love on the album as well. And one of my favorite bands, delirious?, has recorded three versions of their track "Touch" and I think this is my favorite version on this album. It's one of the best multi-artist albums I own, in my opinion, with pretty much every song being good. Like many multi-artist albums from this era, this album is not available on streaming, so you might have to find a CD or some bootleg stream or something to give this a listen.

Release Year: 2000

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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Bongo Chico by Bongo Chico

Album Art of Bongo Chico's self-titled album - On an off-white background, the band name is printed in black letters with a bit of a bulbous, lopsided form to them in most of the top area. Below it, taking up the bottom third, is a thin orange line that looks like a bit of a smirky smile.

"Eh, eh-la-la, Sing with me." Released today, Bongo Chico is the first album from Tim Foreman, bassist of the band Switchfoot. Tim has been clear this is a side project and mostly just an exercise in getting outside of his comfort zone and doing something new, but I like what I hear here. It's definitely different than the sound of Switchfoot, more of a fuzzy pop/rock sound, and that laid-back surfer vibe is definitely present. Lyrically, Foreman's Bongo Chico ruminates on life so far, from his young teenage days in "1995" to love in "I Don't Need You (To Be Wrong)", and touches the present and future in "Maybe We're Just Starting Something" and "What Happens Now". This music doesn't immediately require me to listen, but after a few listens today, I want to listen to it more. Good thing the vinyl is being delivered tomorrow, then, I guess.

Release Year: 2025
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Songs From The Riverhouse by Robert Vaughn & The Shadows

Album Art of Robert Vaughn and The Shadows's Songs From The Riverhouse album - A black-and-white photo of a man in a black coat with a black cowboy hat on is pictured from above, showing his front and and the acoustic guitar he is holding and playing. Not much else is seen in the photo, except maybe some design of some cloth below the guitar. Printed in the bottom left corner is the band name and below it the album title in smaller red letters. In the top center, it has a red box that says 'Remastered Limited Reissue'.

An independent rock release from the early 1990s, this was re-released last year for a limited run of vinyl for the backers of a crowdfunding campaign. With two LPs and a long runtime, this release doesn't have the cohesive feel and the quality rock vibe that their previous album had, in my opinion. The previous album, Love & War, which was released by Island Records, was more solid overall and at 10 tracks, didn't have lots of filler songs. But still, these are not bad songs and there are more varieties of styles represented, from a bit country-tinged pop to more straight '80s blues rock. If you are looking for some rock from about 35 years ago that no one's ever heard of, try this album. It's pretty good. This release is not on streaming, but can be listened to and bought at their Bandcamp store.

Release Year: 1991
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Album Art of Robert Vaughn and The Shadows's Songs From The Riverhouse album - The original 1991 CD cover artwork, a black-and-white photo of a young man with long, blonde hair on the left who is wearing a black jacket, black hat, and is playing an acoustic guitar. On the right, in the distance can be seen a woman in a cocktail dress with her face obscured mostly in shadow and her arms on each side of her head. In the bottom right, written askew in red ink is the album title.

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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Currents by Eisley

Album Art of Eisley's Currents album - Artwork of a green background which looks like murky water with a number of fish and seamonsters in the murky deep. In the lower middle is a large fish with a big, round eye. In front of the fish is what looks like a mermaid with blond hair and has her oustretched, webbed hand touching the large fish. Above all the fish is printed a circle gold logo with the band name in it, with the lowercase 'L' shaped much larger and shaped kinda like a fancy pen or something. In the center, in a simple, smaller blue-green font is the album title.

Released 12 years ago today, this is the fourth full-length album by Texas-based indie pop band Eisley, and the last album with many of the DuPree sisters playing together before moving on to other projects. Sisters Stacy, Sherri and Chauntelle formed this band with their friends and family and as well as providing tight harmonies, they also play much of the instruments. Lyrically, this album contains much of the whimsy and magic that was a part of their first few EPs and albums and disappeared as the sisters grew up and experienced more of life, though it's great to see it return a bit here from these women. It's the beautiful vocals and the ethereal quality of the pop/rock music that I like from this band and what caught my attention in their early days. I have admittedly not listened to their later albums like Currents too much, but it's fun to give it a listen today and find it's better than I remember on the last listen years ago. I'll need to listen to Eisley more often, I think.

Release Year: 2013
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Life by Andy Hunter

Album Art of Andy Hunter's Life album - On a brown, golden-ish background, a white circle that consists of white trunks in the middle emanating in all directions to some circular sprouts around the edge, forming the bigger circle. The white trunks/sprouts seem to be glowing a bit, as the background is a bit lighter around them. In the top right, the artist name and album cover is printed in s very tall, thin font on two lines, with the artist's 'ah' logo to its left.

Released 20 years ago today, this is an album from British DJ Andy Hunter. This might have been called an EP because it’s only 6 tracks, but with a 43-minute runtime, I think this could be called an album. This was Andy Hunter’s second release of original music as a DJ/Producer, and it’s an energetic set of dance/club tracks celebrating life and love. It’s fun music with an epic, cinematic feel like it could be from a movie soundtrack. Play it loud and have a dance party or just groove to the music in your chair!

Release Year: 2005
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Album Of The Day: True Believer by Phil Keaggy

Album Art of Phil Keaggy's True Believer album - A photo of a middle-aged white man holding a shiny, silver guitar in an embrace, his arms around the body of the guitar and the neck up next to and above his head. The man is looking at the camera with a pretty blank expression and is wearing a brown jacket over a black turtleneck and a black beret on his head. He is bathed in a warm, orange-ish light, and behind him can be seen a beige wall which might be rusting in places or something, as there's dark brown marks in many places. At the top, the artist's name is printed in large letters, first name in orange and last name in blue. At the bottom, in much smaller letters, is the album name, first word in blue and the second word in orange.

Released on this day 30 years ago, this is Phil Keaggy's 18th studio album. Keaggy is one of the most talented guitarists in the world. In addition to beautiful instrumental acoustic and electric guitar albums, he also has recorded many rock/pop albums like this one, which is one of my favorites. The whole album is great, but my favorite part is the last 3 tracks: electric guitars and bagpipes on “Be Thou My Vision”, the all-out blues rock jam of “Have Mercy Lord”, and a celebration of life in “The Survivor”, including an epic coda jam. (Phil Keaggy remastered the anlbum and edited out the end jam from his version a few years ago, but that’s only on Bandcamp and the original is still widely available.) I’ve been loving this album for decades and continue to enjoy what Phil Keaggy puts out today.

Release Year: 1995
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: OneDay Live by Passion

Album Art of Passion's OneDay Live album - A photo of a man kneeling on the ground with his head right at his knees and his head looking down into the ground, probably in prayer. Above him, the blue sky and next to him, layered in with the sky is a semi-transparent photo of dozens of people with their hands lifted in prayer and praise. On the left side, it has the word 'passion' in a semi-transparent, blurry white. In the top left, there's a 'p' wheel logo in white and black. Across the middle horizontally, it has a thick white line, and a series of holes in the white line is the words 'one' in bold and 'day' right after it much thinner. Above the line is printed 'live' in a thin black type.

25 years ago today, 40,000 college-aged people gathered on a farm in Tennessee to pray together and learn about God, and at this "OneDay 2000" event, this album was recorded. This recording captures what I expect were some of the best musical moments of the day, plus also gives a glimpse of the speakers and prayers of the day, mostly on the song "You Are My King" and the prayer by Louie Giglio at the end of that track. Passion worship leaders like Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall and Christy Nockels perform some original songs as well as popular worship songs at the time like "Shout To The North" and "Breathe". Tomlin also teaches the audience to sing his song "We Fall Down" in some African language, which is a fun moment reflecting the worldwide nature of the church and the Passion movement that Giglio and team were building. And Charlie Hall's version of Matt Redman's "Better Is One Day" here is one of the best versions recorded, with the extended "better is one day with you" bridge and Darwin Hobbs singing backup being beautiful additions. This is a defining album of my life, despite the fact that I was not at OneDay 2000, because this music has become a recurring prayer for me that I have listened to many times in the last 25 years.

Release Year: 2000
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Reubonic by John Reuben

Album Art of John Reuben's Reubonic album - A photo that seems to be a large, low-ceilinged room with turned off pinball machines and arcade cabinets to the left in the dark, though there's an orange glow coming from above and behind them. On the right, a bright white light is overpowering everything else, except to the far right, one hand is in front of the light reaching out. In the blackness at the bottom is printed the album title in a yellow outline. The left part of the 'R' extends all the way to the left, with the words 'Future Nostalgic Presents' inside it.

Released on this day 8 years ago, this is the 7th album and first independent release from rapper John Reuben. His earlier releases mixed lighter, more humorous topics into the lyrics, but that does not happen much on this album. This time, Reuben stays on topics such as the evils of religion, how we cling to identity and nostalgia, and personal insecurity. The beats and beds definitely feel different from previous albums, but considering this is an indie release and he didn’t release any new music for the 9 years before this, it’s expected that it sounds a bit different. I’ve always liked John Reuben’s music because he calls it like it is and does it in his own style, and I’ll keep listening to his music as long as he makes it.

Release Year: 2017
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A 14-minute music video containing a number of songs from this album:

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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Brothers by The Black Keys

Album Art of The Black Keys's Brothers album - With a rough-edged white border, there is a black background with text written on it. In white in the middle, it says, 'This is an album by' then the band's name in a bigger red print. Then it says, 'The name of the album is' and then the album title, 'Brothers', in a bigger white print. In the border on the edge in the top right corner, it says 'Stereo Sound'. And in the bottom corner, it has the 'Nonesuch Records' large 'n' logo in black inside a white rounded rectangle.

Released 15 years ago today, this is the sixth studio album by rock duo The Black Keys. Dan Auerbach sings and plays instruments, and Patrick Carney does drums and percussion. They are known for a very guitar-heavy blues rock style, and pretty often Auerbach's vocals are a high falsetto. Their songs like "Everlasting Light" and "Tighten Up" are fun jams and I love the sound of their drums, bass, guitars and keyboards for some reason. Maybe there's something very stripped-down to this two-person band, or maybe I just love bluesy rock, and this is one of the few modern artists in that genre that got mainstream enough that I heard their music. There's also something about albums like this one that were recorded in the small southern town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, USA as well. I just love the vibe of this band and this album, though this type of midwestern garage rock may not be for everyone. Their last few albums haven't excited me as much, but this one of my favorite albums from The Black Keys.

Release Year: 2010
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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots

Album Art of Twenty One Pilots's Blurryface album - On a black background, there are 9 circles in the center. Each circle has a pattern inside it, mostly black-and-white, though two (top right and bottom center are red and black). Some are just geometric patterns, others look like plants or something. At the top, it says the band's name in white print on two lines, with the 'O' characters joined with lines between them. Below the circles is printed the album title with a strikethrough line, though the line goes behind the 'U' and 'A' characters.

"Honest, there's a few songs on this record that feel common." Released 10 years ago today, this is the third album from Twenty One Pilots, a duo that blends rap, rock, reggae, alternative and indie pop to make a very unique sound. Though singer/lyricist Tyler Joseph might not be too comfortable with his success, Blurryface keeps the listener guessing what is coming next and on a musical journey through very dramatic life events and sometimes dark places, though there are hints of hope. It's a wild ride with lots of energy, and I love it, though it might not be for everyone. This is still their best album to date, in my opinion, and worth a listen if you want to hear something unique.

Release Year: 2015
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Twenty One Pilots and Mutemath Sessions:

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Album Of The Day
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