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Album Of The Day: Carnaval De Luz by U2

Album Art of U2's Carnaval De Luz album - The majority of the cover is a blue sky with thin, wispy clouds in some places in the sky that is more light blue near the bottom and dark blue higher up. At the bottom, the sky meets the ocean and waves are crashing up onto a sandy beach. On the beach is are four men walking from left to right in a line a few feet apart from each other. Three of them are wearing black coats and pants, while one is wearing a light pink suit and pants. The front two have large hats and they're all wearing glasses as they seem to be walking into the sunlight. Towards the top, it has the band name and the album title written in white text.

Released today, this is the sixteenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. In the last 20 years, U2 has only released 3 albums of new material, but in 2026 they released 2 albums worth (2 EPs earlier this year and this LP). U2 is also celebrating 50 years as a band this year which is an impressive feat. Like the EPs earlier this year, the chatter from some music fans is that U2 is sounding better than they have for over 20 years, and I think I agree. But I'm not ready to say that it's as good as the stuff they made in their heyday (1983-2003 or so). On this album, a good amount of lyrical phrases are in Spanish/Portuguese, including the album title and a song inspired by the music and performance of pop star Rosalia. And their first tour dates are in Latin America and Europe, primarily countries that speak those languages. The opening track has the same guitar riff as appeared at the end of spring's Easter Lily EP and shows the band is still trying to have fun and experiment with sounds. "The Greatest Show On Earth" is a bit slow to start but has a good vibe and hearkens back to their Joshua Tree days. And Bono tries to keep his head from getting to big with "The Greatest Show..." and "Superficiality". There are some references to a higher power throughout, but the band's biggest message seems to be we need to not fight each other. The final track, "Torn", was a collaboration with Dolly Parton and is a beautiful song that she started and the band worked with her to make it their own. It is the last thing Parton recorded before passing away a few months ago and is a highlight as well as a beautiful closer to the album. It will take me a few more listens to decide exactly where this fits in U2's oeuvre, but it seems like the band still has some of that magic that made them international stars decades ago.

Release Year: 2026
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Album Of The Day: What Makes It Through by Sara Groves

Album Art of Sara Groves's What Makes It Through album - On a background that is dark brown on the left and top edges, it transitions to light brown in the middle and a bit more toward the bottom right. In the bottom right quadrant is a middle-aged woman with brown hair and glasses looking slightly to her right, and in front and above her is a whole bunch of floating blocks, circle discs made of wood, and things that look like rocks, all of which suspended in the air in front of or above her head. There's maybe 100 pieces suspended in the air. In the bottom right, in a small gray box is Roman Numerals for the number 14, noting it's her 14th album.

Released 5 years ago today, this is the fourteenth album by singer-songwriter Sara Groves. Throughout her first 13 albums, Sara mixed her personal thoughts with her understanding of Christianity, but on this album, she's talking less directly about Christian themes and more about personal and literary themes. Produced by Sara herself and mostly recorded at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, songs like "Cheshire Cat" and "Telltale Heart" clearly are pointing to literary works by Carroll and Poe, respectively, but there's also ideas from a number of Kazuo Ishiguro novels in the liner notes as well. I really like how Sara's beautiful songs address important topics to our lives today, like whether it's better to remember or forgive and forget as well as how to address a "Deal Breaker" in a relationship. This 9-track album ends with a new recording of one of her best songs, "Loving A Person". It's a bit different than her other music lyrically, but I think it's one of her best albums. I love that my CD copy came with a book containing lyrics, credits and expanded artwork. I think you can still get those from the artist's website.

Release Year: 2021
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A middle-aged, rotund man with short hair and a greying beard is shown from the shoulders up wearing a grey shirt with a cow on the front of it. He's holding a book that is brown with a version of the album cover printed on it, as well as a CD with similar artwork in the same hand. Behind him, in a brightly-lit room is a wall full of CDs and other random stuff.

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Album Of The Day: Currency by Anberlin

Album Art of Anberlin's Currency album - A purple background that looks like it could be a purple-hued version of a sky, darker at the top and with a bit of clouds making it lighter at the bottom. In the middle, in red text but printed backwards, it says the album title 'Currency' in all caps.

Released today, this is the ninth album by rock/alternative band Anberlin, though I would really consider it a new band to some extent with this album. From 2002-2014, Anberlin was an underground force in the world of rock music, but then they broke up. From 2018 to 2020, they reunited a few times and then began playing together again. Then in 2023, lead singer Stephen Christian left the band and Matty Mullins took his place. This is the first album with Matty as lead vocalist and without Stephen writing, and I would argue it's the same band name, but the band is pretty different. Don't get me wrong: there's still most of the band members so it still has a great, pounding rock style. But the lyrical content and vocal delivery is a bit different, I feel. Early Anberlin was almost a bit emo, but I don't think anyone would consider this retooled band to be anything like that. Still, this is a pretty good 11-track album of new, energetic rock songs with a few tracks of slower emotional punch. I don't think it's going to be on my list of top albums for this year, but it seems like Anberlin may succeed without Stephen and into the Matty era.

Release Year: 2026
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Album Of The Day: In This Hour by Jill Phillips

Album Art of Jill Phillips's In This Hour album - A photo of a mixed media artwork on a dark blue surface with a dark blue background. The bottom is a book which looks to be made of different types of pages, some sticking up out of the book to look like it's kinda floating or fanned out. On the pages that are open, on the top of them is some hand-drawn paper trees sticking out of the pages. The trees are just branches, no leaves, and bare. In the middle, though, a woman with brown hair, a green shirt and a red dress is drawn on paper and kneeling down, placing a green plant with a yellow flower in the ground that is the pages of the book. It kinda looks like a pop-up book, but it looks like it's just a static piece of art not a bunch of pages in a pop-up book. In the top left, printed in orange text over the photo is the artist's name, then in the same font in white but italics below it is the album title.

"If you want to change the world / What you've got to do is show up, just show up." Released 15 years ago this past Sunday, this is the seventh album by independent singer-songwriter Jill Phillips. Like she does on all her albums, she creates beautiful pop/rock songs about daily life's beautiful and mundane moments, infusing her Christian faith into these lyrics. It's less about preaching the Gospel, I think, but more about expressing the truth of life as a Christian in this modern world. Many of the songs are co-written with her husband Andy Gullahorn and are about their personal relationship. These songs are simple pop/rock, singer-songwriter style for a quiet evening of contemplation. This is one of her albums I've not listened to as much as some of her other releases, but it's a good collection of 10 songs. I really appreciate Jill's songwriting and her voice is very beautiful.

Release Year: 2011
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Album Of The Day: Black Holes & Revelations by Muse

Album Art of Muse's Black Holes And Revelations album - On some red, rocky soil with an expansive, red-colored rocky valley behind them and a blue sky with just a bit of clouds in it, four men are sitting around a wooden table on wooden chairs. All four men are bald and/or have very short hair, the left one having religious symbols on his white jacket and is wearing some sort of cybernetic device on his head. The man in the front is wearing a suit coat that has large eyes all over it. The person in the back has a jacket with mirrors attached all over the outside. And the person on the right has a bright gold jacket. On the table, a few small horses are galloping from the right side. In the sky above, a planet that looks like Earth can be seen as well as a moon near it.

Released 20 years ago this past July, this is the fourth studio album by English rock band Muse. I think it's still my favorite album of theirs; it's a non-stop, 45-minute journey of rock music with a futuristic, dystopian feel. Matt Bellamy's lyrics about fighting the patriarchy and exploring space are sung so passionately, and the band's guitars, drum and bass are so creative. "Starlight", "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Invincible" are some favorites from this, but the whole thing is really worth a listen. The album ends with "Knights Of Cydonia", an epic, six-minute battle song for the future. If you are looking for some creative modern rock and have never checked out Muse, I highly recommend this album.

Release Year: 2006
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Album Of The Day: All I Owe by Matthew Smith

his hair, mostly, with a bit of the top of his noses and eyes and his right ear at the very bottom, and we can see his shoulder of a brown coat of some type on his right shoulder. Behind him looks to be some golden and brown wallpaper. Over the top of the photo above his head is a dark brown rectangle that says the artist's name and the album title on separate lines. The rectangle has some decorative curved lines and leaf designs coming out of it.

Released 20 years ago yesterday, this is the first full-length album from folk/rock artist Matthew Smith. On most of these songs, he takes some old English-language hymn texts and sets them to new rock melodies for some theologically-interesting, more modern music for listening and worship at church. This album has some melodies you may recognize like "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing" and "Nothing But The Blood", but most of the rest were both new lyrics and melodies to me. I really like this idea of setting hymns to more modern music and enjoy this album, though I definitely haven't listened to it enough; for some reason I don't choose to listen to these albums often, but I should more as the lyrics are better than a lot of modern worship music. Matthew Smith seems like a very nice man and I appreciate the music he has made. Matthew Smith recently talked about this album on The Album Anniversary Podcast with my friend Caleb. It's almost that time of year for my favorite Matthew Smith project, Your King Has Come, a special Christmas album with multiple artists.

Release Year: 2006
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Concert Film Of The Day: The Last Band On Earth by The Elms

DVD Cover Art of The Elms's The Last Band On Earth concert film - A black-and-white photo of a guitar on a dimly lit stage with bits of light shining on it only in places is mostly black, but provides a backdrop. Printed on top if it is in small text, 'An Absorb Picture' in small, all-caps dark grey text, with 'The Last Band On Earth' printed in very large block text with a gold outline. 'A film about The Elms' is printed in smaller text below it with a white outline. There's a white border around the whole thing.

Released 15 years ago today, this is the second concert DVD released by rock band The Elms, one of my favorite bands. After four albums and 10 years, The Elms decided to retire as a band and move on to other things, and on July 30, 2010, they played their final concert in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. They played over 30 songs for over 3 hours in this epic finale as a band, I hear. This concert film was created by the band in the year following the concert and released on DVD independently. The film accurately captures the energy and musicianship of their live shows in its 110-minute runtime. (No, they did not release video of the entire concert, but there's about 20 songs here.) The audio sounds great, and the video is frenetic and oscillates between black-and-white and some sort of hyper-colorized version that gives the film an almost psychedelic look. The video is sometimes also very blurry and grainy and has fast cuts, which are interesting choices and I'm not sure I like it visually as much as their first concert DVD. But it's great to have this recording of the band's last show and it's certainly the way the band wanted to present it. The DVD film can still be purchased from the band's website along with their vinyl box set. In the 16 years since, the band has reunited a few times for a live show and hanging out with fans.

Release Year: 2011
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Album Of The Day: Momentum by TobyMac

Album Art of TobyMac's Momentum album - A photo or collection of photos spliced together where all of the background has a heavy horizontal motion blur, so it's hard to tell what the background is. But it looks like it could be a sidewalk and a brick wall with an advertisement sign on the left side. In the middle, pasted on top of the photo is a black-and-white cutout of a man in shorts and a black shirt with a beanie on jumping through the air and screaming. There's a blurry color photograph version of it layered in behind as well. Below the jumping person it has the album title in small white text with the artist name in larger text below it.

"So if you're wondering why I / Continue to try my / Skills in this rap game / Girl, I can't get enough." Released 25 years ago today, this is the first solo album from pop/rap artist TobyMac. Known in the '90s as being the rapper in the Christian rap/R&B trio dc Talk, after the group disbanded, Toby McKeehan (aka TobyMac) started a solo career that was rather successful and continues to this day as a Christian pop/rap artist. Maybe thanks to the co-production from Pete Stewart on some tracks, many of the songs here contain musical beds that are guitar-heavy and a large wall of sound. Other songs sound a lot more like early DC Talk, with simple hip-hop beats and beds with guest vocals on the choruses. This album is one I listened to a lot back when it was released, but honestly, I find it harder to enjoy Toby's music more than other artists. I find the lyrics pretty childish and overly positive, plus I now understand more of what non-Christian artists he was trying to imitate and it seems less amazing. I also always thought TobyMac was better at finding and building talent at his Gotee Records as I liked their artists a lot more than his output. Still, I suppose it's worth a mention that this was a big release in Christian music 25 years ago.

Release Year: 2001
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Album Of The Day: Spirited by Stephen Christian

Album Art of Stephen Christian's Spirited album - On a powder blue background that looks more grey on the left and fades into a bit of brown in the top right, a man is standing in the center and looking off to his right. He's wearing black pants and a black shirt, and his skin is white and he's holding a leather jacket in his left arm with his hands clasped over his chest. He's got brown hair that is short on its sides but pretty long on the top. Printed above his torso on top of the photo is the album title in very thin white text. And on the background just below it on both sides of his waist is his first and last name in much smaller white text.

Released 5 years ago today, this is the second solo album from pop/rock artist Stephen Christian, most well-known as the original lead singer of Anberlin. While Anberlin was a rock band that made mostly love songs, Stephen Christian's solo music has been more Christian pop/rock. Stephen here records 10 songs of worship-oriented music, most of which he wrote or co-wrote along with some of the biggest songwriters in Christian pop/worship music. While I think these songs are not as great some of his other works, it's clear that Stephen Christian has a lot of talent in songwriting and performance. These songs use a lot of religious and biblical language that most non-Christians will not understand, but musically they are interesting, guitar-led rock sounds that I find really enjoyable. I've been playing the track "Call/Run" often since I first heard it, and the rest of the songs are really well-made as well. It seems to me like Stephen Christian is one of those artists who will always be writing and recording music and I'm happy to see it in whatever type he wants to do, no matter if it's this Christian music or his more mainstream pop/rock works under the name Anchor & Braille or even something else.

Release Year: 2021
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Album Of The Day: Terraform: The Sky by Propaganda & L's

The Sky EP - A photo of a desert-ish background with some cacti and scrub bushes and a partly cloudy sky above and some large rock formations in the background. In the center from the waist up there is a man in a denim robe/hoodie also wearing some sort of hair covering. He's black and his hair is long and braided, and he's holding a cup of coffee in his right hand. Around his head is a golden circle, kinda like a halo of a saint in an early religious artwork. In the sky, on top of the photo is printed 'The Sky' in large text, then 'Propganda and L's' in smaller text. In the bottom right, the words 'Terraform' are in small white text.

"I'ma alter your summer solstice / Uh, I'm a beacon to all cultures / Uh, I'm a cosmic explorer / Build a new world, big homie, terraform." Released 5 years ago tomorrow, this is the second EP in the "Terraform" series from rapper/poet Propaganda. From Los Angeles, Propaganda is one of my favorite rappers of the last decade. He's creating intelligent rap music, plus he's building community in his hood, doing spoken word poetry and maybe even some improv comedy or something too, if I'm understanding his Instagram correctly. But on this EP, he's lyrically drawing on ideas from the sky and exploring space to remind us that we own this world, we should take care of it, and we need to build the world we want. It starts with '2:30" which is spoken word over beats talking about the 2017 solar eclipse and how it put our world into perspective. And on "Mars" he also points to how if we colonize another planet, we'll probably have the same problems we've had in colonizing continents here on Earth. My two favorite songs on this EP are "Gutteral" and "Calibrate" as some of these lines get stuck in my head. Thanks, Propaganda, for making me think and encouraging me to think bigger. And shout-out to L's for the production too; it's quality hip-hop.

Release Year: 2021
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