Skillet’s new album, Awake, was released today. It is their first record of new material since 2006′s Comatose(links go to the Amazon.com MP3 store)
Comatose is definitely in my top 20 albums of all times. So it was with great anticipation that I waited for Awake. Here are my initial thoughts: Awake is a good album with some very awesome songs on it. Along with those spectacular songs sit some very boring songs (read “ballads”)
01 Hero Hero starts us off on a rocking pace. It is a song full of energy and conviction that makes you pump your fist in the air.
02 Monster Monster is the second track and it picks right up where Hero left off. This is possibly the heaviest song on the album (and the best IMHO). This should be the title track of the new Wolf Man movie that is soon to be released!
03 Don't Wake Me Up Don’t Wake Me Up is a sleeper of a song (sorry, bad stretch for a pun). I’m hoping this song grows on me, but I find myself reaching for the next button on my iPod whilst listening.
04 Awake And Alive Awake and Alive is quite the opposite of the previous song. The strings at the opening of the song are reminiscent of Rebirthing from Comatose. I like the dual vocal duty of the male and female singers. (I know the lead singer’s name is Jon Cooper, but I have to admit I don’t know who the girl is.)
05 One Day Too Late
Yawn…another mediocre ballad. One Day Too Late doesn’t capture my imagination or my ear. Just like Don’t Wake Me Up, I find myself reaching to the iPod to skip this song. I hope I grow to love these songs, I really do.
06 It's Not Me It's You
Ah, there we go. The Skillet we know and love. It’s Not Me It’s You is another rocker almost on par with Monster and Hero. The chorus is quite catchy. This song is quite angry…I’m glad a Christian band can make a song that isn’t all rainbows and sunshine.
07 Should've When You Could've
Crap…really? Another slower tempo song? Should’ve When You Could’ve breaks the rocker feel that It’s Not Me It’s You set. I think this is what ultimately wrong with Awake. You can never get into that rocker groove, as it keeps getting interupted with sub-par ballad type songs.
08 Believe
And the sub-standard ballady crappy songs continue. Believe is the 8th song of the record and honestly, it’s at this point I’m about to turn of the album and listen to something else.
09 Forgiven
What’s this? Piano? This makes three non rocker songs in a row. Forgiven‘s lyrics are great, but enough with the bad 90′s power ballads already.
10 Sometimes Sometimes finally brings the rock back to the album. This song could be a sequel to It’s Not Me It’s You, with the angry guitar work and the the very angry lyrics. ”Sometimes I don’t wanna be better, Sometimes I can’t be put back together, Sometimes I find it hard to believe there’s someone else who could be….just as pissed of as me.” Very strong and honest words. I hope Skillet doesn’t get any grief for this song. Sometimes is the type of song I wish the entire album was made of.
11 Never Surrender
And yet another slower song. Never Surrender is better than the other slow songs on this record. The structure of the song and Cooper’s vocals make me want to keep listening.
12 Lucy
Cue piano…@#$%$%! another ballad! I know my attitude towards this song should be different as it is about someone who has died. I could possibly like it if it wasn’t the umpteenth slow song on the album.
The Deluxe Version of the Awake includes two bonus tracks (of which I forgot to upload to my server, so no audio is available). Dead Inside is another rocker (yay!) that is pretty good. Would It Matter is, you guessed it, another freakin’ ballad. Monster (Alternate Radio Version) finishes off the album.
All in all, I’d give this album 6.5 out of 10 stars. The good rock songs are great, while the majority of the album is made up of ballads that I just don’t want to listen to. If you are new to Skillet, I would buy Comatose and Collide and then Awake.
Rock Of Ages is a Tony nominated smash hit musical comedy currently running on Broadway and starring American Idol’s Constantine Maroulis and Amy Spanger. In 1987 on the Sunset Strip, a small town girl met a big city rocker and in LA’s most famous rock club, they fell in love to the greatest songs of the 80s. It’s ROCK OF AGES, an arena-rock love story told through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of JOURNEY, NIGHT RANGER, STYX, REO SPEEDWAGON, PAT BENATAR, TWISTED SISTER, POISON, ASIA, WHITESNAKE and many more. Don’t miss this awesomely good time about dreaming big, playing loud and partying on!
Where can I buy tickets for this show? The music is cheesy and fun, just like it was in the 80′s.
Stryper’s new album, Murder By Pride, has hit the torrent websites for download. I’ve been buying a new song from the album every week, so I don’t feel guilty for downloading the four songs I haven’t heard. I will be purchasing them the minute they are available.
This album is phenomenal. Even is you are not a Stryper fan but love hard rock in the vein of Boston and Journey, you will love this album. I thought it might be fun to break the album down a song or two at a time and share my thoughts about them.
The first song up is entitled Mercy Over Blame. Click the play button below to listen.
Love saves the soul
Hate kills the heart
Fear robs the goal
Hope gives a start
Forgiveness is a gift
Bitterness a chain
The ugliness we sift
His beauty still remains
When we all reach Heaven
There will be no shame
‘Cause when we stand before Him
It’s Mercy Over Blame
Faith heals the scars
That pride has brought upon
Grace will be ours
When all we have is gone
When we all reach Heaven
There will be no shame
‘Cause when we stand before Him
He will know each name
He will know each name
Some of us believe Him
?
When we all reach Heaven
It’s Mercy Over Blame
When we all reach Heaven
There will be no shame
‘Cause when we stand before Him
He will know each name
When we all reach Heaven
There will be no shame
‘Cause when we stand before Him
He will know each name
He will know each name
Mercy Over Blame
I’m glad to see Stryper getting back to their roots, both musically and lyrically.
Musically, this song takes me back to the days of To Hell With The Devil and In God We Trust. The moment they harmonize on the chorus, singing “mercy over blame” is just awesome!! The bass is aggressive and very well mixed into the song. Michael Sweet hits his famous high notes and Oz Fox shreds on the guitar. Classic Stryper! Everything about this song is beautiful!
Stryper was the first Christian metal band to make it big. They have always been up front about their faith in their lyrics. This song, Mercy Over Blame, is no different. They sing of God’s grace and that He can wipe away all of our shame. We’ll stand before Him and He’ll know our name. It was easy to grasp lyrics like this that helped me to become a Christ Follower at the tender age of 16.
I have done something that I’ve wanted to do since I was 16 years old…..I bought a ticket to go see Stryper in concert! Yeah, yeah I know – insert bumble bee stupid jokes here. You can read my story about how I became a Stryper fan here.
Stryper will be supporting their new album, entitled Murder By Pride, which will be released July 21st, 2009. The six songs I’ve heard so far are top quality and are a great addition to the Stryper legacy.
The concert will be on November 14th, 2009 in Los Angeles. So I have to wait a little over 5 months until I can drive 4 hours to see the concert of a lifetime! 5 looooong months of waiting……….my anticipation made me remember a story in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip where Calvin sends off for a beanie and he dies a thousand deaths waiting for it. Because I love Stryper and because I love Calvin & Hobbes and because this is my blog, I’m gonna share that comic strip in the coming days. (check out this website where a fan lovingly scanned in the entire Calvin & Hobbes library)
I just got an email from Skillet saying their new album will be out soon! I have official word from Michael Wittig (aka Kalel, bassist from Pillar and now Stars Go Dim) via Twitter that the new Skillet album is dropping August 4, 2009.
Hey Panheads,
The official SKILLET pre-sale for the new album “AWAKE” will launch on Monday, June 15th!!!
Their last album of new material, Comatose, was released in 2006. So it’s been a looooong wait! Here’s the video for Rebirthing to tide you over until then.
When it comes to musicians, there are probably none more authentic than The Beatles and Johnny Cash. Different genres for sure, but their music is timeless.
Every now and again a newer band will cover one of these timeless pieces of music and put their own spin on the song. Such is the case for two songs that I’d like to share with you the reader.
“Man in Black” (or “The Man in Black“) is a protest song written and sung by and about Johnny Cash, originally released on his 1971 album of the same name. Cash himself was known as “The Man in Black” for his distinctive style of on-stage costuming. The lyrics are an after-the-fact explanation of this with the entire song as a protest statement with statements such as:
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he’s a victim of the times. (wikipedia)
One Bad Pig is a Christian punk and metal crossover band from Austin, Texas which formed in 1985. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music describes them as “Quite possibly the most popular hard-punk act ever to arise within the Christian music scene.”[1] They were known for their mischief and irreverence on-stage, as reflected even in their reunion at Cornerstone in 2000. (wikipedia)
Our little town of Merced was thrust into the national spotlight last week when First Lady Michelle Obama gave the commencement speech for the first graduating class from UC Merced.
I don’t think a more polarizing figure has ever visited Merced.
I myself am a partisan atheist. I honestly think that the government is corrupt and that no one in the political process has mine or my family’s best interest in heart. Republican or Democrat – they are all crooks just trying to steal my money in taxes!
I find myself in the middle of a firestorm of ideologies. On one side I have good Christian friends who think Obama is the worst thing to ever happen to this country and can not see him doing anything good. On the other side I have good Christian friends who think Obama sits at the right hand of Jesus and can nothing wrong for our country. I personally think both sides have lost perspective.
This post isn’t a political rant. As I wondered through my extensive iTunes music library, I chanced upon a band I haven’t listened to in quite a long time.
Crashdog is (was?) a Christian punk band (iTunes link: or here is the Amazon.com link. 25 songs for $6.99!)) from the 90′s and they recorded a song called “G.O.P. (God’s Own Party)” and I think it encapsulates some of my own political ideas (or lack thereof).
Listen below. I couldn’t understand some of the lyrics, so I placed a ? where I could not translate! If you can understand, please fill in the blanks!
Welcome to the halls of Congress
our nation’s blood flows out from here
All our values shall be back
now that we dumped the Democrats
We’ll go soaring on the right way
a godly tune this bird will sing
Watch me run the White House now
think of all the things we’ll do
Knock Knock (who’s there) GOP
oh won’t you please let us in
we’re pro-life and squeaky clean
just don’t look beneath our skin
Vote vote vote the underclass
kindly gently down the drain
Christians and Republicans
Aren’t they the same?
How much of Jesus do you find
in their lovely party line?
No federal funding for the unwed
Mary’s back in the manger of death
Forget the alien and the stranger
proposition one eight seven
Welfare can’t afford these kids
resurrect the ?
Knock Knock (who’s there) GOP
oh won’t you Christians let us in
we’re pro-life and squeaky clean
just don’t look beneath our skin
Vote vote vote the underclass
kindly gently down the drain
Jesus a Republican
have you gone insane?
2000 years and every ?
been tied to every joker card
From Inquisition to the crime?
?
Go ahead take a look
read between the lines
pull from the pack and from the race
what is left online?
Knock Knock (who’s there) GOP
oh won’t you Christians let us in
we’re pro-life and squeaky clean
just don’t look beneath our skin
Vote vote vote the underclass
kindly gently down the drain
Christians and Republicans
they are not the same
they are not they are not
they are not
they are not the same
Jesus and Republicans
have you gone insane?
have you gone insane?
Again, I just want to stress that I’m neither for the Democrats nor for the Republicans. Crashdog has some good points in their song. To assume that Jesus was a Republican IS insane. To assume He was a Democrat IS just as insane. I think Christians should be outside the party lines and serve the less fortunate with no strings attached.
IMHO every Christian should read Greg Boyd‘s fantastic book entitled “The Myth of a Christian Nation”. I’ve come to align my political views with the ones presented in this book.
One reviewer sums up the book this way: “the book really focuses more on what it means for any Christian anywhere to identify the eternal kingdom of God with the temporal kingdom under which he or she lives. Although Boyd has a very different understanding of the Christian’s relationship with the political, he almost could have borrowed St. Augustine’s title THE CITY OF GOD (AND THE CITY OF MAN), the latter half the implied title of Augustine’s classic. Or the great French lay theologian Jacques Ellul work THE POLITICS OF GOD AND THE POLITICS OF MAN. Like Ellul, Boyd insists that it is impossible to Christianize any temporal political regime. To confuse the two is to make what Gilbert Ryle would have called a category mistake, to confuse one kind of entity for another.
Boyd from the outset makes the distinction between worldly governments, which he refers to either as the kingdom of the sword or the kingdom of the world with the kingdom of the cross or the kingdom of God. The former is characterized in all cases by a self-interested “power over” others. This is true even in the most just and fair governments as well as in the most tyrannical. The kingdom of God, however, is characterized by disinterested, loving “power under.” Boyd shows that Jesus repeatedly in the New Testament refused any “power over” role, despite being the son of God, instead continually acting out in his life a “power under” self-sacrificial love, a way of living he demanded of his followers. Over and over the NT emphasizes that Christians are to live out the life of Christ in love and service to others. Moreover, this love is to be indiscriminate, and not given only to those who are like us and share our views. In fact, Jesus emphasizes that it is those on the furthermost edges that we are most to show our love to, not by judging them and legislating against them, but by serving them. There is little doubt that if Jesus were walking the streets of America today, he would be spending all his time with gays and people with AIDS and drug addicts and the poorest of the poor.
Boyd sees a large number of failings in the Religious Right today. He hints that people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are, in fact, heretics. Boyd asks why we so often identify people as heretics based on some religious belief, when in fact Jesus emphasizes over and over how crucial it is to love others. He asks, when has anyone ever been identified as a heretic because they failed to love as Jesus commanded them to do. And that is much of his complaint with the Religious Right: their patent failure to love. Boyd stresses that if we are actually expanding the kingdom of God, it will look like Jesus, it will look like love in action. It will not look like people who fanatically attack gays, who ferociously delight in the killing of terrorists or Arabs, who are obsessed in condemning others as sinners.
One of the reasons that James Madison pushed through constitutional clauses that divided church in state both in Virginia and later in the United States was that he felt that a close alignment of any religious body with a government did great harm to the the church. Madison pointed out that if the church closely aligned itself with a particular political party, then when that party went out of favor, the church would be rejected along with the sectarian political party. Boyd explains in great detail the many dangers to the kingdom of God whenever it is confused with kingdom of the world. Therefore, the greatest dangers to the church are those who want to Christianize America, for they not only trivialize religion, they profanize the holy.
This is one of the most devout books I have read in quite a while. Rev. Boyd is clearly a deeply religious, careful, humble, intelligent reader of the Scriptures. He also is an advocate for a truly radical reading of the Bible, one that calls for radical discipleship. What has disturbed me about the Religious Right has all too often been its incredible worldliness, the way its leaders have supported a culture of grasping after worldly wealth, of elevating greed and political power to the level of the theological virtues faith, hope, and love. I remember vividly a number of years ago sitting in First Baptist Church of Dallas and hearing W. A. Criswell speak of “the only economic system ordained by God, the American free enterprise system.” I have heard countless preachers proclaim that America is a country uniquely blessed by God. Boyd, on the other hand, emphasizes a Gospel where if you have two coats you are told to give one of them away; where if you are struck on the face, you are to offer the other cheek; and where there is no difference between Jew or Greek or (by implication) American. Boyd’s vision of the kingdom is a nonnationalistic, self-sacrificing, unselfish, nonmaterialistic striving to imitate Christ. It is a corrective that has never been as needed as much as it is today.”
The newest Styper single, Eclipse of the Son, is now available to purchase on iTunes! Follow this link:
Even though I’m biased, I have to say that this is a great hard rock song. The melodies and song style took me right back to the In God We Trust album , mixed a little with Against the Law and Reborn .
Stryper plans to release one new song per week. Here is what is posted on their website:
So we are heading to an 80′s party this weekend and the only thing we are required to bring is a playlist of 5 of our favorite songs from that era. Initially I thought this would be a very easy task, but it turned out to be harder than I thought.
The criteria for picking my top 5 are as follows: What makes me remember being a teenager in my room air guitaring all over the place and what just had that fun 80′s rock feel that made you want to be with your buddies?
I’m gonna count down from 5 to 1, so here is my fifth song:
5. Ratt’s Round and Round
Ratt was one of my all time favorite bands back in the day. Their music was infectious and groovin’ and fun. I picked them from pure nostalgia. I probably listened to more Ratt than any other band.
[viddler id=b3acb226&w=437&h=392]
4. Dokken’s Burning Like A Flame
Burning Like a Flame isn’t the best Dokken song, I know. I love it and again, this song is chosen from good memories as a teen. I grew up in a small town and we didn’t have cable, so I couldn’t watch MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball. I had friends that would tape it for me, and it always seemed that Dokken’s Burning Like A Flame was being played. I love the album artwork and I love the entire album.
[viddler id=640e2a83&w=437&h=392]
3. Tesla’s Love Song
Tesla just has to be in the top 5. They have sooo many good songs that it was very hard to pick which one I love the most. I figured that the power ballad needed to be represented, and Love Song is one of the best.
5150 was the very first hard rock album that really grabbed my attention. I was in 8th grade when it was released and it turn me onto hard rock for life! You can read another blog I posted about this experience here. So needless to say, I had to pick a song from 5150 just because it was this album that made me what I am today!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMKHc3JURFo] (I know the audio quality is horrible on this video, but it was the only one I could find!)
1. Stryper’s To Hell With The Devil
Yes, Stryper has my number one song of the 80′s!! Even as Van Halen’s 5150 made me give hard rock another listen, Stryper’s To Hell With The Devil made me give God a second look. This album was a huge catalyst for me becoming a follower of Jesus. I had the above album cover as the big back patch on my jean jacket in high school. I was THAT cool! Again, you can read about my experience here!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KubgMDSMXfI] (unlike the Van Halen video, Stryper is spot on and sound just like the album! Premiere musicians, these guys are!)
It’s been a lot of fun picking these songs. As soon as the party is over I’ll be posting pics of all us dressed up goofy and having fun!
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I just got an email from 
Our little town of Merced was thrust into the national spotlight last week when First Lady Michelle Obama gave the commencement speech for the first graduating class from UC Merced.
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