Archive for January, 2009
Free Download from Remedy Drive
From the band’s latest email update…
“FREE DOWNLOAD: If you haven’t already registered on our site, just go HERE and register for free! Once you’ve filled out the registration form, just click on the “Download ‘Stand Up’ FREE!” banner to get your free MP3 of track 1 from the Daylight Is Coming CD.
Already a member? Forward this to a friend and invite them to sign up for their free download!”
Remedy Drive is one of the best new bands coming out of 2008, and “Stand Up” is one of best songs I’ve heard from them. I’m pretty pumped about the download, even if it does mean signing up for one more site. Once more, the link:
Update: The download now appears to up and running.
Free Dowload of “The Remedy” by Ayeisha Woods
iTicket’s has got more free music this week, as usual. This time it’s the song “The Remedy” by Ayiesha Woods, from Ayiesha’s debut CD, Introducing Ayiesha Woods
Since “The Remedy” is an older song, I first heard it after I got it from MyFreeMusicFriday.com, the now defunct but formerly awesome weekly free music site. The song is pretty good, not as good, at least in my opinion, as some of the other songs from that CD, but still good. Plus, it’s free. You’re not likely to get a better deal then that. Enjoy!
Free CD from Brian Lee & His Orchestra
Free music today from Brian Lee & His Orchestra, a talented group of musicians who contacted me while back about getting their music featured. I checked them out, and liked what I heard, so, I’m now glad to announce Vol. 1.
Vol. 1 is a free 7 song EP that is available absolutely free on their website. Stylistically, it’s a soft soul/gospel record, a “feel good, driving, drinking coffee, up early in the morning kind of an album”, to quote Brian. Nice, reflective, calm music. But don’t take my word for it. A quick Google search reveals several other bloggers, most of which know more about soul then I do, who recommend it as well.
The track list:
- “Just Got Off A Train”
- “Wake Up My Brothers”
- “On the Other Side”
- “To Know Your Love”
- “Cleaned Out My Pockets”
- “Love and Roses”
- “Help Me to Hold On”
Even if you don’t normally listen to this style of music, you should still check them out. You might just like it. After all, what do you have to lose? 
Free Song From Fiction Family
Just so you know, Matt apparently has some sort of internet problem and hasn’t been able to post anything, and I’ve been busy with classes starting this week, so I haven’t been able to post anything until now. Anyway…
As many of you know, Jon Foreman (of Switchfoot) recently put out solo work. Now, in addition to Switchfoot and his solo work come Fiction Family, a side project he has started alongside Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek. Over a period of two years they worked on their new self-titled album, recording parts of songs and sending them back and forth until perfected. Now they are offering their new single “When She’s Near” for free. This week, it is the free download at iTickets, and it is also available for a limited time on the Fiction Family website. I’m giving you both links because I’m not sure how long the download on their website will last.
Free Songs from Before Their Eyes
As much as I enjoy Christmas every year, it’s good to get back to normal music again. Today, I’ve got two demos to share from Before Their Eyes, a talented new Christian metal/pop band. Musicially, I would say they sound like a cross between The Devil Wears Prada, Burden of a Day, and Search the City.
Anyway, I was looking them up on Purevolume the other day, and happened to find downloads of “Crawling Towards Forgiveness” and “The Nighttime Is Our Time”. Both are demos of songs from their self-titled debut. I’m pleasantly surprised by the songs, both sounded good, despite being demos. Actually, “The Nighttime Is Our Time” is 21 seconds longer in the demo version, which is pretty sweet. I’d recommend any fan of TDWP or Burden of a Day check these guys out. They’re going to ones to keep a eye on.
“We Wanna Winter Jam, We Wanna Winter Jam”
Free music today from courtesy of the Winter Jam tour and HearItFirst.com. As you may know, Winter Jam is a big tour hitting the road this winter with TobyMac, Newsong, Hawk Nelson, BarlowGirl, The Afters, Stephanie Smith, PureNRG, Francesca Battestelli, and Brandon Heath (not to be confused with the Winter Slam tour, which also features TobyMac. I know, it’s confusing.)
Anyway, Winter Jam has a theme song. The song is called “Winter Jam”, and was recorded by a Christian musician by the name of Rawsrvnt. It’s an arena anthem with a catchy chorus, and it happens to be free on HearItFirst.com. Scroll to the bottom of the article for the download link. Enjoy!
-“Winter Jam” the theme song on HearItFirst-
James’ Top 10 Downloads Of 2008
So, it was hard, but I narrowed down my top 10 list. And I only included three of my own posts, unlike Matt, who listed ten of his. Nevermind the fact that I joined him late in the year and only posted one day a week for not even every week til the end of the year…
Anyway, I sorted through the 300+ posts and probably 1000+ songs and ended up with this list of favorites:
10: Tie Between Children 18:3, Children 18:3, and Children 18:3 – So, Matt had a tie at 10th, so I thought it was only fair that I do the same. Children 18:3 was a band I found near the beginning of the year and was the first band that year to show me that pop-punk could be something that I could enjoy if it was done right.
9: Sides of the North – This small band was one of Christian music’s best kept secrets, which is a shame because they were awesome. Six songs by them is definitely an awesome post and worthy of placing in the top 10.
8: Summer Slam Volume 2 – Indie Vision Music has been one of the top sources of free Christian music, and SSV2 is their biggest and best. It gave me free songs from Project 86, Stavesacre, Ocean is Theory, The Dark Romantics, and introduced me to a bunch of smaller bands, especially The Human Flight Committee, with their song “She’s A Car Destroyer.”
7: The Devil Wears Prada – I became a fan of TDWP when I saw them at Warped Tour (and crowdsurfed to them). So I was very excited when I found a free sampler containing “Hey John, What’s Your Name Again?”
6: The Awkward Romance – The Awkward Romance was already my favorite local band before they came out with this CD, This Song Is Writing Me, but this CD caught me by surprise by how well produced it was. And the fact that they gave it away for free was an even bigger surprise.
5: Capital Lights – What Children 18:3 started was reinforced by the introduction to my of Capital Lights. And what we have here with “Can I Get An Amen” is Capital Lights at their best.
4: Stavesacre – Stavesacre is a band that I’d heard of a for a while but never listened to for the longest time. However, once I saw on here that they had a song (“It’s Beautiful Once You’re Out There”) up for download, I decided to give them a listen. I was far from disappointed, and I must say that I have found one of my new favorite bands.
3: mewithoutYou – As I’ve mentioned before, mewithoutYou is my favorite band. The only reason that this isn’t listed higher is that I already had the song long before I found the download that I featured. Still, they are my favorite band.
2: Tooth & Nail Fuel Sampler – Any Tooth & Nail sampler is gonna have awesome songs on it, but this one caught me by surprise with the artists that I enjoyed the most on it. Now, I already had the great songs from Children 18:3 and Showbread, but this sampler introduced me to Capital Lights and Oh, Sleeper plus it gave me amazing songs from Sever Your Ties and my personal favorite on the whole sampler, “Abracadavers” by The Classic Crime, which was a band I had long ago written off.
1: House of Heroes – Sure, I found it before I found this site, but the three free songs, in combination with the ones they streamed on myspace, held me over until their new CD finally came out in September. “In The Valley Of The Dying Son” has been in my collection since March and has yet to ever at any point get old, and neither have any of the others, which is why this places as the number one download of the 2008.
Honorary Mentions:
Everyday Joe’s – This sampler was no longer available by the time that I found this site, but anything that includes Listener Project is awesome.
Christmas Day 12 – Matt put a ton of work into this post, listing something like 2 dozen artists with Christmas songs up for download.
Matt’s Top 10 Favorite Posts of 2008
Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that it’s 2009 already. Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel much different from 2008 so far. Hmm. Anyway, James came up with a great idea for the end of the year. We’re both going to go through last years posts and pick our top ten. There was a ton of great music last year, and I had trouble narrowing it down to just 10, but I finally succeeded. Without further ado, my list:
10. Tie: Jonathon Steingard’s Atlantis EP & Fighting the Fall- I just couldn’t decide on this. The Atlantis EP is an excellent & personal solo debut from Hawk Nelson’s guitarist Jonathon Steingard that I really like. On the other hand, Fighting the Fall is a talented independant emo/screamo band with two good free songs. Both Atlantis & the FtF downloads are still available.
9. Run Kid Run “One In A Million” and Sanctus Real “Turn On The Lights” – “Turn On The Lights” is a great song, but the real reason I particularly love this post was “One In A Million”. It’s an awesome, catchy song that I can’t get enough of. Sadly, both songs are no longer available.
8. Leeland “Opposite Way” – Not only do I like the song, but I also really like what Leeland did by asking fans to share their stories about “going the opposite way”. This one is still available, if you’d like to check it out.
7. The Devil Wears Prada, Burden of a Day, Before Their Eyes – It’s hard to top The Devil Wears Prada, and when you add in two promising new bands like Burden of a Day (with an excusive demo, I might add) and Before Their Eyes, it’s probably going to be good. Still available.
6. The Tooth & Nail Fuel Sampler – I shouldn’t really need to explain this one much. Something like 25 free songs from the best Tooth & Nail Records bands. My favorites are Run Kid Run, Capital Lights, and The Becoming. By the looks of it, this sampler is still available too.
5. House of Heroes’ FreeHoH .com – Three awesome songs from The End Is Not The End, House of Heroes’ latest that could very well be the best CD of the year. Really, really good. As far as I can tell the songs are still available.
4. Staple “Dictatorship vs. Democracy” – I don’t know what it is about this song, but I just don’t get tired of it. This one has been on my mp3 player all year, and I still love it. This one is also still available.
3. Number One Gun – Pure alternative rock goodness. I don’t think I can begin to count how many times I’ve listened to these three songs this year. Still available, and highly recommended.
2. Three Cord Wonder – Even though they may not have been the next big thing musically, I think Three Cord Wonder was one of the coolest Christian bands I featured this year. I listen to a lot of music, and I rarely ever get to hear such a unashamedly Christian band. Sure, the lyrics are simple, but they’re true, and give glory to God. That’s a band I can look up to.
1. Esterlyn – I’d never heard of the group Esterlyn before 2008, and now, they’re one of my top artists. In fact, I liked their music enough to write up a whole spotlight on them. Extremely good.
There you have it, the year 2008 in free Christian music as seen by Matt. Now, even though those were my favorite free music posts, there were a couple of others that deserve mention simply because they were particularly fun, random, and unusual. That list includeds No More Gloom, the free CD Everyday Joe’s Coffee House (in Fort Collins, Colorado) released, featuring different songs by artists who’ve played there, which was really random. And then there’s the BarlowGirl song on the German site that required step-by-step instructions. That was a lot of fun to write up. And, last but not least, the mind-blowing weird song titles post. That was so much fun to research and write for, and totally random too.
That’s why I decided to start stockpiling song titles for version 2, which you can look for sometime soon. Like last time, I’d love it if everyone could contribute their favorite weird-and-wacky titles. Leave a comment, or shot me an email at freechristianmusicblog@gmail.com. Thank everyone for reading, and happy New Year!
Oh, and I just remembered, I was going to ask what your favorite posts from 2008 were. Do you agree with me, or have your own top pick?
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