Three years ago, Robert Randolph and the Family Band exploded onto the music scene with a squeal of a pedal steel guitar. People have not stopped piling on heaps of praise since they arrived. Since the release of the album, Unclassified, Robert Randolph and his crew have been touring almost non-stop with many well-known secular musicians like Dave Mathews, Counting Crows and Eric Clapton.

It was taken them across America and internationally. These factors led me to several questions I wanted answered when I heard that a new album was released, Colorblind. […read more]

Three years ago, Robert Randolph and the Family Band exploded onto the music scene with a squeal of a pedal steel guitar. People have not stopped piling on heaps of praise since they arrived. Since the release of the album, Unclassified, Robert Randolph and his crew have been touring almost non-stop with many well-known secular musicians like Dave Mathews, Counting Crows and Eric Clapton.

It was taken them across America and internationally. These factors led me to several questions I wanted answered when I heard that a new album was released, Colorblind. […read more]

Legacy of Love Live as the name implies is David Phelps’ first live CD/DVD project. This collection of greatest hits with a few new tunes was taped in March at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham to a full house of adoring fans. Phelps, formerly of the Gaither Vocal Band, does not disappoint by putting on quite a show. His strong soaring tenor commands attention and his backing musicians are tight.

Opening the set is the riveting “Virtuoso” with an energetic instrumental teaser lead by the violin. Onstage the lights go up and Phelps appears at the top of a staircase causing the crowd below to roar. Following this hit is another from Revelation, “Arms Open Wide” which is only featured on the DVD. Other DVD exclusives include the triumphant song “Behold the Lamb” plus live thoughts and conversations with Phelps, members of his band and friends from back home in Culleoka, Tennessee. […read more]

Sarah Kelly stops at Christrock.com for a private concert to share new music from her latest album that we thought we’d share with our readership. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone! Click here to see the show!

Skillet’s new CD is an incredible display of the band’s talent. This CD will definitely blow your mind. Continue reading to get a glimpse of the album’s powerful music. If you’ve been listening to Skillet since their first CD, you’ll know their sound has changed with their last CD, Collide. Now, they are even more full of rock in Comatose. An amazing array of songs, this CD will take you on an emotional roller coaster. […read more]

EuroCamp: It might become the new musical style in Christian music. Here’s a strange mixture: take the Euro pop flare of Benjamin’s Gate and give it an understated acoustic vibe ala Jeremy Camp. That’s what the solo debut of Adie (former B Gater and wife of Jeremy Camp) sounds like, at least in it’s best moments. Really, I could just sit and listen to her accent all afternoon. Mix in some subtle bass and percussion work, strings, excellent songwriting, and – oh yeah – some strong spiritual sentiments and you get a pretty complete CD with several songs that could work quite well on Christian mainstream radio. […read more]

If you enjoyed the debut album of Krystal Meyers, then you will most likely love this next one, Dying for a Heart. In her first album, Krystal Meyers could easily have been described as the “Christian version of Avril Lavine.” She sounded very much the same as this secular artist, while mixing in messages of hope through Christ. Now, in her newest album, Dying for a Heart, Krystel Meyers has broken away from that sound and created music that has a rockier and more unique sound. […read more]

Nevertheless is an anti-emo band that has all the trappings of the genre without any of the annoyances. Good emo is like finding that one ripe peach at the grocery store. You muscle the other shoppers out of the way, dive over other carts, circle around and drop the grocer to his knees with one quick maneuver, and land your sweaty palms on the choice, delicious fruit. Ah, yes: exaggerated allegories, I love them. But there is a sense of excitement when you finally discover an emo band that doesn’t waste time getting to the chorus, could play regular alt-rock if they choose to, and doesn’t really mince meat when it comes to sing-able lyrics and a non-whiny style. Somehow, Nevertheless manages to focus on everything good about the genre and catapult all the bad stuff out to space. Thwack. [ …read more]

Chris Tomlin, Bebo Norman…and Bruce Springsteen? Find out why they are name-checked in the same paragraph. Also, we mention Chris Rice, but not in a fun way. The name says it all. Bebo Norman is trying a little too hard on his latest release, “Between the dreaming and the coming true.” I mean, I’d just call it “Truth in Dreaming,” or maybe “Dream, then Truth.” What the album titles says to me is that he is kind of trudging over the same ground, adding prepositions to sentences that worked fine the way they were before, on his first two records. Chris Tomlin has the same issues: when you are successful at a certain sound, there’s not a lot of opportunities in CCM to make your statement release, to go all Bruce Springsteen Ghost of Tom Joad on your listeners. […read more]

Former Mayfair Laundry front woman releases a solo album with help from some Christian music luminaries. But is it luminous enough? Find out in our review.

The title says it all.  Kim Dexter’s solo debut is what it is, take it or leave it.  She has the credentials, having fronted the band Mayfair Laundry in the 1990s and penned songs for fellow artists Bryan Duncan, Nicole C. Mullen and Kim Boyce.  The passion is there evident throughout the album as she pours her heart out sitting at the piano.  Dexter’s voice though is the independent variable that makes some songs stand out and others, well, not as much. […read more]

Christian music falls prey to the “Attack of the iTunes” plague just as easily as secular. Find out exactly what that means in our new Foolish Things review. Back in the day before MP3s and iTunes, a band could sell its records on the strength of a few songs. Now, more than ever, it’s necessary for the music to earn its right to be purchased as an entire entity because, after all, a great song only costs ninety-nine cents. The good news for you, the listener, is that the great songs on Let’s Not Forget the Story can be yours for just under four dollars. […read more]

“See the Morning” is a remarkable, sing-able, compelling listen with songs that will end up in constant rotation at churches worldwide. The real question is: could it have been more? Chris Tomlin needs to stretch himself more. That’s one of the findings I had after listening to See the Morning so many times that I knew the songs on guitar, could understand the meaning behind the lyrics, and even compare them one-by-one to his previous CDs. It’s difficult to review the CD this way – for the most part, you want to review something on its own merit. But Tomlin has a legion of fans who will be thrilled with the idea of listening to new material. I know I listened to Arriving repeatedly. But as a worship leader, Tomlin is far more than just a guy who makes CDs. His songs are sung in churches across the world, he leads worship for the Passion conference and has many other gigs. This, I believe, puts him under the microscope a bit more: the bar is higher. […read more]

If you picked up the sophomore release to BarlowGirl’s smash self-titled debut, than this expanded edition will not enhance your CD collection unless you are an avid fan. Last year’s Another Journal Entry delivered more of the same bright, tight harmonies and rocking beats of the powerhouse sibling trio. The expansion pack merely features acoustic versions of “Never Alone” and “On My Own” from BarlowGirl, plus acoustics of “Porcelain Heart” and “I Need You To Love Me” from the original Another Journal Entry. And to ensure that you do not forget what launched BarlowGirl on the charts, the music video and radio-edit of “Never Alone” are also included with the expansion pack. The only genuinely “new” track is the traditional hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth” performed straight with full orchestration. In addition to the specially packaged CD is the 150-page book BarlowGirl: More Than Music written by and about the Barlows. […read more]

Come get to know June Rochelle as she tells us about how she got started in music and where she is now. ChristRock: How did you first get started in music? June: I grew up around music because my mom was a singer and I used to watch her perform. I actually started singing in church when I was 12 years old. It became a dream of mine to share Christ through my music because I realized, even from a young age, that God gave me my voice as a gift. […read more]

The moonlighting Backstreeter follows last year’s chart-topping rendition of Michael English’s “In Christ Alone” with his full-length solo debut. Just as there are those who will question the integrity of any Christian artist fortunate enough to place a song on the Billboard Hot 100, Christian-themed recordings from mega-successful mainstream artists seem destined to draw a corresponding measure of skepticism. Given the fact that Brian Littrell began singing in church at age 5 and honed his musical skills in the youth choir at Lexington, Kentucky’s Port Memorial Baptist Church though, one could argue that his foray into Contemporary Christian Music is more a return to roots than any sort of opportunistically-inspired endeavor. […read more]

Spur58 is one of our favorite new bands around here. I call it melodic worship. Their new CD releases in October. A sign that they can ROCK and WORSHIP at the same time is that I could be listening to the new Chris Tomlin for the 10th time today, but I’m tracking their new CD instead (grin). Look for reviews for both soon. Who will win this grudge match? God. In the bio, they explain why on earth they IM in their van. […read more]

Kim Dexter is a power-pop artist on 7Spin Records that doesn’t mess around too much with teen lyrics or immitating other Christian artists. Here, she answers our bio, but look for a CD review soon. CR: What was your first big break in Christian music? Kim Dexter: “Well, there were actually two. When I was 20 years old I met a pretty well known producer/artist (at the time) by the name of Tim Miner who took me under his wing. He let me tag along, singing with him on the road, and put me in on some pretty big back vocal sessions with his R&B friends such as the Winans and Nicole C. Mullen.” […read more]

What would any of us give to sit in or hear a live unrehearsed jam session with Phil Keaggy? To be there at the moments he is creating and just having fun on his guitar. On Phil Keaggy’s new album, we get a glimpse of what that may be like.

The premise of the album was to take music that was recorded during a sound check and compose it into several songs. So, we get a peek at what makes Phil Keaggy a special guitarist, one that is regarded by many as one of the top acoustic players around. […read more]

From the opening cut “Work” to the first single “Dead Man (Carry Me)” to the bluegrass-esque “There Is A River” the beat is well-defined and should induce head-bopping and toe-tapping. Jars attempts and succeeds in focusing the lyrical content of this album more on the emotions in a moment than grand premises and beliefs. Case in point is the serious Julie Miller-penned tune “All My Tears.” The epitome of this musical direction is the highly-driven “Oh My God.” Dan Haseltine’s vocal prowess warmly sings without backup instrumentation and then ever so slowly builds to a raw, pleading cry as he lists social injustices and hypocritical, unfair circumstances underneath drummer Jeremy Lutito who adds to the urgency as his downbeats fall promiscuously on the edge of the tempo. This one will give you goose bumps. [ …read more]

We’re not always the brightest bulbs at Christrock.com. We didn’t know that Trevor McNevan does double-duty leading FM Static and Tousand Foot Krutch. Now that we think about it, it makes sense: the slower songs sound similar in both bands. But the upcoming FM Static release has us so jazzed that we can’t think about anything else right now. What? North and South Dakota used to be one state? Sprite is owned by Coca-Cola? Bill Gates is married and has a son? We know so little. Here, Trevor enlightens us about FM Static and thier music. […read more]