Blog

Album Of The Day: NWxSE by Smalltown Poets

Album Art of Smalltown Poets's NWxSE album - A color photo of five middle-aged men standing in front of a building with stone walls and tall, thin windows and a roof that goes up and down often. The sky above the building is a golden grey/white, almost the same color as the building. On the left side, a portion of a large, blue circle is on top of the photo, and on the right a similar red partial circle is over that edge of the photo. At the top, in the sky, is printed the album title in large, dark blue text with red and blue shadows on opposite sides, and below that printed in smaller text is the band's name in blue and red.

Released 5 years ago today, this is the eighth studio album by rock band Smalltown Poets. Formed about 30 years ago, this band from the Atlanta, Georgia area was on major Christian music labels for their first 10 years or so, but for the last 20 years or so have been releasing music independently from time to time. The band still rocks, and on this album they deliver 10 new songs that are fun, personal and contain some religious concepts. Like many albums released in the year after the COVID-19 pandemic, it definitely is a bit heavier lyrically as the band struggled with abrupt changes to our lives (as we all did). It's maybe a bit slower and there's no immediate stand-out, catchy single like on some of their earlier albums, but that's OK. Overall, it's a good new release from an experienced band that sounds as good as ever.

Release Year: 2021
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder

Album Art of Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life album - A series of 5 circles are inside of each other, each circle with rough edges that seems ripped out of paper, maybe. The interior of the circles is darker than the outer edges, a dark red in the middle and more of a light gold on the outside, until you get to the innermost circles. The innermost, smallest circles is all white and has a drawing or black-and-white photo of a black man with curly hair from the shoulders up and wearing sunglasses. On a bottom part of the circles, printed in a fancy black cursive-style font, is the album title and below it in slightly bigger text, the artist's name.

"Music is a world within itself / With a language we all understand." Released 50 years ago today, this is the eighteenth studio album by music legend Stevie Wonder. This album is a beast, coming at 105 minutes long on two CDs and streaming and originally released on two LPs with a 7" EP of bonus tracks. I'll admit it, I've been a big fan of music my whole life, but I haven't listened to enough of the classics, and boy am I glad I've given this one a listen a few times in the last few years. I certainly understand why many consider this one of the best albums of all time, as Stevie Wonder is making excellent music throughout this. Mr. Wonder's songs comprise many types of music, including funk, jazz, R&B, classical as well as pop into this Motown Records release. Surprisingly, the song I most recognize is "Pastime Paradise", as it is the basis for Coolio's rap hit "Gangsta's Paradise", but there's so many other good moments here. I'm a fan of a long, epic song, and there's actually 7 tracks here with a runtime of over six minutes. "Confusion" is a great instrumental jazz/funk track too. From this listen, I think my favorites were "Have A Talk With God", "Sir Duke", "Isn't She Lovely", and "Black Man". If you have not given this album a listen or if it's been a few decades (or even more), set aside a bit of time and give it a listen for its 50th anniversary.

Release Year: 1976
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Vice Verses by Switchfoot

Album Art of Switchfoot's Vice Verses album - On a somewhat golden-hued light background with some ringwear on it, so maybe a worn paper vinyl sleeve, someone took a large sharpie and wrote 'Vice Verses' in all caps, filling up the whole space with huge letters. Where the bottom of the first word meets the top of the 2nd word, that middle area is all black and then cut out of that black is the band name in a a bold, serif font. And below that is a stylized 'S', a word-mark for the band made of two angled blocks, the lower one with a star shape attached to the bottom.

"Still lookin' for a home in a world where I belong." Released 15 years ago today, this is the eighth studio album by San Diego-based rock band Switchfoot. I've been following this band for nearly 30 years now, they have many good albums and this is one of them. Songs like "Afterlife", "The Original" and "Dark Horses" bring lots of energy and feature excellent, hard-hitting guitar work from Drew Shirley. Then songs like "Restless" and "Thrive" as well as the title track are slower but have so much lyrical depth. I love "Selling The News" as well because it's a bit unexpected, but also speaks so well to our culture, maybe even more today than when it was recorded. Finally, "Where I Belong" has become Switchfoot's concert closing song for these last 15 years and is an awesome, epic closer, expressing the band's desire to join their fans in a journey to find where we belong in this world. Vice Verses is an excellent album of rock songs that is well worth a listen, whether for the first time or the 100th time.

Release Year: 2011
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: The Cymbal Crashing Clouds by Ben Shive

Album Art of Ben Shive's The Cymbal Crashing Clouds album - An illustration of a city of some sort. The sky is pink for some reason, and on the left is a large tree with no leaves. Underneath the tree is a yellow owl with a white, human face that is as tall as the multi-story buildings the own is standing next to. Across the are to the right of the owl is four buildings, all pained white with not too many windows, and all of which have red roofs but different colored doors. In front of them, stretching across the bottom, is a road which has 6 cars of various colors on it. In front of the tree is a wall with a door in it and a person walking through. Behind the buildings on the right is a green, steep hill and there are four green churches on the hillside. Around the edge of the hill comes a train on a track that stretches out into the sky above the buildings and the track is falling apart. The train is red and the steam from the locomotive is the clouds, where the album title is printed in a script. To the left of that, in the pink sky, is the artist's name in yellow.

Released 15 years ago today, this is the second album by musician and producer Ben Shive. Mr. Shive has been known to me as a producer and multi-instrumentalist, working with many types of artists, mostly Christian pop/rock artists. I'm not sure why, but I've never taken the time to check out his two independent solo albums until today. It's definitely on the more experimental end of rock/pop music, but it's really layered, interesting music. Some of it could almost be mistaken for an unreleased later-years Beach Boys track that you had not heard before. I've heard lots of the artists he's worked with rave about his music, and I'm very glad I finally gave it a spin on this album's 15th anniversary. I'll have to give it a few more listens and devote more time to better digesting this album in the coming weeks.

Release Year: 2011
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: In The Company Of Angels by Caedmon's Call

Album Art of Caedmon's Call's In The Company Of Angels album - A photo of what looks like a leather cover that is on top of a bunch of loose pages with ragged edges piled on top of each other, photographed from the top down. On the cover, the leather is a light brown and whitened with wear in spots. There's a simple line drawing of a church building with a double door and a cross on top that is in the most worn spot on the left side. To the right of that, it has the band's name printed in a handwriting-style font in black, plus the album title printed below that in smaller, serif font and then 'a call to worship' in another handwriting font below that.

Released 25 years ago today, this is the fifth album by folk-rock band Caedmon's Call. In the previous five years, the band had become one of the top Christian bands thanks to their acoustic-rock full-band sound, a whole decade before Mumford & Sons came on the scene. With three vocalists who switched off lead and a large band making lush instrumentation, they've always been a fun band, and their songwriting was fresh and thought-provoking. On this album, though, they take a bit of a different track. Instead of their normal style of personal folk songs with Christian themes, they are singing more modern worship songs in the band's musical style. The songs here are mostly new to the fans and not just the popular new church standards, though most are not written by band members. There's a few classic hymn texts with new melodies by Sandra McCracken, plus some new songs written by Kemper Crabb and Aaron Senseman and some by the band's Joshua Moore. Oh, and there's a new live version of their hit from the year before, "God Of Wonders", from the City On A Hill special event album. This is definitely not my favorite album from Caedmon's Call (their better stuff was released in the 5 years before this), but it's not bad music either.

Release Year: 2001
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Forever Phase by Paul Meany

Album Art of Paul Meany's Forever Phase album - An illustration with a large building on the right side with multiple levels, and a road stretching out down the middle. On the left, the road dissolves into space with stars and galaxies. The sky above is lighter than the space on the left, but there's lines of darkness radiating from the vanishing point in the back of the drawing. Where the sky and the space meet, there's a thin circle outline, maybe supposed to evoke a moon. In the middle, what looks to be a small person is there, and in the air near them there's a few curvy lines suspended there. Across the bottom in small letters is the album title painted in black.

Released one year ago today, this is the first solo album by electronic pop/rock artist Paul Meany. The lead vocalist of one of my all-time favorite bands, Mutemath, Paul is an excellent songwriter and musician. You can definitely hear the Mutemath style here, though these songs are certainly all his own as well. For a number of years, Paul has been working with Twenty One Pilots and other artists on production and other things. Like much of the earliest Mutemath songs, this album is pretty chill, keyboard-heavy and a fun vibe. Lyrically, it is clear Paul is still processing the end of Mutemath though also working to move on. This album is not as good as his previous work with Mutemath, but I certainly hope that Paul Meany keeps on making more music, as I expect he will. I definitely want to hear more, and I could probably also give this a few more listens.

Release Year: 2025
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Buy on Bandcamp

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Get In, I'm Drivin' by Ginny Owens

Album Art of Ginny Owens's Get In, I'm Drivin' album - A photo of the New York City skyline taken from the Brooklyn Bridge with cars streaking by on the deck below is the background. On top of that is layered a woman with brown hair down past her shoulders, bangs and a frilly black dress leaning on a classic yellow cab that looks a bit worn out. She's got a bunch of jewelry on her fingers and wrists and keys in her left hand. Printed over the top of these in big, semi-transparent aqua blue letters is the artist's name right in the center, with the album title in smaller, yellow letters just below it to the left.

Released 15 years ago earlier this month, this is the seventh studio album by pop singer Ginny Owens. The album name and cover art is funny to me as I know Ginny Owens is blind and therefore probably does not drive, but that's really not what she's talking about. After four albums with Rocketown Records from 1999 to 2005, Ginny recorded a Christmas album and a hymns album, and then this album of original songs in 2011. I kinda lost track of Ginny Owens for a bunch of years there and only recently picked up this album on CD, and I gotta say I'm glad I circled back to her music; this is the kind of stuff I love from her. The music is mostly piano-based and very poppy, but has a bit of a jazz/blues bent to it. The lyrics are definitely based on her life experiences and talk a lot about her Christian faith. It's clear she wanted to keep making music and worked hard to make this happen, and the lyrics are often about her power to get things done through God's grace and her own determination. I also love the slow, chilled-out cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" that fits well with her own songs here. Unfortunately, this album is not on streaming currently so you might have to find a copy on CD somewhere to give this a listen.

Release Year: 2026
Buy from the artist's store

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Target And The Arrow by PFR

Album Art of PFR's Target And The Arrow album - Spilt down the middle vertically with a thick black bard between them, there are two photos of similar-looking buildings. They building is a part of a brutalist housing tower, with mostly just concrete walls and windows and various colored wall panels adding a splash of color from time to time. The two pictures look pretty similar and are a bit blurry, but the left one has windows on the outside of the structure, while the right one has more windows inset a bit, so there's a shadow from the sun on those parts. Printed in white over the top of the left photo is the band's name, and in smaller, thin black text on the right photo's top area is the album title in lowercase.

Released today, this is the sixth album by rock band PFR and their first album of all-new songs in 25 years. These three guys were known throughout the '90s Christian rock/pop scene for catchy tunes asking questions about life with a religious slant but also pretty universal themes. Despite the band members being much older, they really pick it up like they never left. Their voices sound great, the music is excellent and the songs are still interesting and growing on me after a few listens. The guitars are a bit spacey still—which I love—and the band still has solid harmonies just like always. One song even has a verse sung by Leigh Nash (Sixpence None The Richer). A few of the lyrics use words and have topics that they would not have been able to release on a Christian record label, maybe, but it's just them being honest so I have no problem with it at all. More often, the lyrics are about life's changes over time as well as love. It's worth checking out whether you're an old fan or not. I hope this album gets a release on CD or vinyl at some point!

Release Year: 2026
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Buy on Bandcamp

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Satellite by P.O.D.

Album Art of P.O.D.'s Satellite album - A color photo of four young men in black shirts and baggy navy blue pants with black-and-white sneakers stand on a flat, desert landscape that spreads very far off to some hills way off in the background. The sky is blue and clear and the sun in shining right above their heads, putting a shadow in front of them. On the edges of each person, there's some sort of moving blur but the people are perfectly clear, so it's maybe some sort of effect or double-exposure. Printed on top of the photo is the band's word mark with a trinity symbol inside the 'O', and with an embossed, chrome metal look. In smaller text, the word 'satellite' is outlined in silver chrome metal.

"This I pledge and I'm taking to my death / I'll lay my life down for you and die over again / I and I, I'm not ashamed of the Most High" Released 25 years ago earlier this month, this is the fourth studio album by nu-metal band P.O.D. Starting as an underground metal group in Southern California in the early '90s, the band hit the big time in 1999 with their major-label The Fundamental Elements Of Southtown album and in fall 2000 a new band called Linkin Park was an opening band on P.O.D.'s tour. Then on September 11, 2001, this album was released and it quickly outsold all their other albums combined. For a few years, "Alive" and "Youth Of The Nation" were all over mainstream rock radio, and their metal with slick production, catchy hooks, and infusion of hip-hop/reggae into their sound made for a powerful combination. "Boom" was on a list of songs that Clear Channel Communications asked not to be played on their radio stations after September 11th as it could have evoked the idea of bombs. The first half of the album is definitely the best songs, but I do like the lesser known parts of the album too. They don't shy away from their Christianity, for sure, on songs like "The Messenjah", "Without Jah, Nothin'" and "Portrait". "Without Jah..." and "Ridiculous" have guest spots from reggae artists, while "Anything Right" features vocals from Blindside's lead singer for the hardest metal song on this album. And even "Thinking About Forever" and "Portrait" are excellent songs to close the album. P.O.D. might be known for just a few songs, but Satellite is also a top-notch album of reggae-infused nu-metal with heart.

Release Year: 2001
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Ghosts Upon The Earth by Gungor

Album Art of Gungor's Ghosts Upon The Earth album - A photo of a man and woman in front of a beautiful landscape. A grassy open space has trees behind it, and above it a sand brown sky. The landscape is in focus, but the people in the front are very hard to make out, like they were moving as the photo was taken. The man on the left is bearded, has glasses, and is wearing dark clothing. The woman on the right seems to be wearing a light-colored dress and her long hair is flying every which way. In the top right, it says the band name in lowercase text.

Released 15 years ago today, this is the second album by experimental folk-rock band Gungor. This is husband-and-wife duo Michael and Lisa Gungor, often with a few musician friends to fill out the band. Musically, this album reminds me of something like Sufjan Stevens, with a good amount of mandolin and other acoustic instruments, but also a lot of rock experimentation and even a few appearances by a choir. The lyrics are heavily religious in nature, often riffing on The Bible's passages and other Christian sources. I would not really call this "modern worship", though, as it's not really something that can be sung in a church service; it's more of an artistic performance with Christian themes. This is not a band I listen to often, but they certainly provide an interesting listen that you won't find much anywhere else.

Release Year: 2011
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify

Categories: 
Album Of The Day
Music

Pages

Browse the blog by category or date