The Free Christian Music Blog

Free Sampler from Uprising Festival

I’m very excited to be writing this post.  After all, it’s not everyday I get to announce something that I discovered that features several rare songs, and the fact that it’s been available for years and yet missed by hundreds of people makes this extra sweet.  What is it?  Well, many of you have probably seen this post before, or come across the sampler from Uprising Festival at some point or another.  The 4-song sampler from Purevolume has been around for a long time.

But wait, that last sentence wasn’t completely true.  You see, it’s not a 4-song sampler at all — it’s actually a 15 song sampler!  One day, I was remembering how I had previously found rare free songs from My Epic, Before Their Eyes, and Blessed By A Broken Heart on Purevolume by looking under the “Albums” page on their profile.  I randomly decided to try it on the Uprising Festival sampler, and to my surprise, discovered these free songs:

• Relient K – “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been”
• Starflyer 59 – “Easy Street”
• House of Heroes – “Invisible Hook”
• Toyko Rose – “Spectacle”
• OneRepublic – “Apologize”
• Cool Hand Luke – “The Foster”
• Goodbye Tomorrow – “Carouseling”
• Hundred Year Storm – “Yesterday We Had It All”
• Melee – “Perfect Mess”
• My American Heart – “Poison”
• Brandtson – “Nobody Dances Anymore”
• Waking Ashland – “Julian”
• Copeland – “Pin Your Wings”
• Mae – “Anything”
• Dustin Kensrue – “Folk Song”

Here’s where things get a little complicated:  Of those 15 artists, I know for sure that Relient K, Cool Hand Luke, House of Heroes, Copeland, Dustin Kensrue, Hundred Year Storm, and Starflyer 59 are Christian bands.  I’m also fairly certain that Waking Ashland is.  Mae may or may not be, I’m really not sure.  Then there’s Brandtson, My American Heart, Melee, Goodbye Tomorrow, and Toyko Rose, none of whom I’d heard of before, but based on my research, I’d say they aren’t.  Finally, there’s OneRepublic.  I’ve heard they’ve had some connections with Christian music over the years, but I’m not sure of the details, and at present, I’d classify them as a mainstream band.

Next, there’s another matter to look into, the songs themselves.  I haven’t been able to listen and compare all of the songs, but it sounds like many of the songs are demos, alternate versions, or rare songs.  I know Dustin Kensrue’s track “Folk Song” is a rare acousic live song, and that Copeland’s “Pin Your Wings” seems awfully soft.  Also, I know that the version of “Apologize” by OneRepublic is a good 30 seconds shorter then version that’s currently available on AmazonMP3, which leads me to wonder if this could possibly be an early version of the song.  Incidentally, I think this is the only song I’ve ever mentioned on TFCMB that’s a former #1 hit on the pop charts.  Interesting stuff for sure.

One more thing I should mention in relation to the songs, when I checked it tonight, Hundred Year Storm’s “Yesterday We Had It All” download wasn’t working.  It could be a temporary problem, or a broken link, but, since you can download the same song for free here, it’s really no problem either way.

To download the songs, all you need to do is visit the Uprising Fest Purevolume page and click on the “Albums” link.  Then, visit the albums you’re interested in and download the .mp3s.  Enjoy!

-Uprising Fest on Purevolume-

One more thing — I know the Uprising Festival Purevolume profile looks rather fan-made, and the reason for that is Purevolume has made several updates since it was first released, and it hasn’t been updated for them.  So don’t worry, it’s legit.

Tags: Brandtson, Cool Hand Luke, Copeland, Dustin Kensrue, Goodbye Tomorrow, House of Heroes, Hundred Year Storm, Mae, My American Heart, OneRepublic, Relient K, Starflyer 59, Toyko Rose

Free Songs From Copeland

Remember back in January when I featured downloads from a site call Daytrotter?  If you don’t, the site basically has artists come in to their studios and re-record several of their songs in a different way.  Then the songs are put up for free download, along with a writeup and drawing of the band (like the one above).  However, there was only one person on the site we could post about until now.

Copeland recently had a session with Daytrotter, and they have for songs for free download there.  All but one of them are from You Are My Sunshine, so for fans of Beneath Medicine Tree, In Motion, or everything except the title track from Eat Sleep Repeat may be a little disappointed.  This however, is nothing to be disappointed about (Well, except for the fact that the vocals sound off.  Maybe its just a new spin on them and I’m just too used to album vocals.).

-Copeland on Daytrotter-

Tags: Copeland

Fuel Returns (And Matt’s Head Explodes)

It’s true – Tooth & Nail and Solid State Records have let loose yet another unbelievably epic sampler to wreck musically chaos on the eardrums of fans everywhere.  In fact, the only thing that could come close to touching this is the last Fuel sampler.  The tracklist:

• Surrogate – “Exercise Machines”
• Living Sacrifice – “Overkill Exposure (Rough Mix)”
• Haste the Day – “68″
• As Cities Burn – “84′ Sheepdog”
• Children 18:3 – “All My Balloons”
• FM Static – “Boy Moves To A New Town With Optimistic Outlook”
• Thousand Foot Krutch – “Bring Me To Life”
• Emery – “Cutthroat Collapse”
• Ivoryline – “Days End”
• mewithoutYou – “Every Thought A Thought of You”
• The Crucified – “The Pit”
• MxPx – “Punk Rock Girl”
• The Ascendicate – “Scottish”
• Oh, Sleeper – “Son of the Morning”
• August Burns Red – “Thirty and Seven”
• Becoming The Archetype – “Dichotomy”
• Copeland – “The Grey Man”
• Hawk Nelson – “Let’s Dance (Dojo Dominating Remix)”
• Showbread – “Nothing Matters Anymore”
• MyChildren MyBride – “On The Wings of Integrity”
• Neon Horse – “Strange Town”
• Corey Crowder – “Look How Far We’ve Come”
• Trenches – “Sacrament”
• The Showdown – “[Achilles] The Backbreaker”
• And Then There Were None – “Reinventing Robert Cohn”
• Family Force 5 – “Fever”
• Jonezetta – “Sick In The Teeth”
• Since October – “Guilty”
• The Chariot – “Daggers”
• Underoath – “Desperate Times, Desperate Measures”
• Secret & Whisper – “Anchors (Acoustic)”

If that doesn’t get you pumped up for this, I don’t know what will.  Well, besides the fact that the Showbread and Oh, Sleeper songs are brand new, never-before-heard.  They aren’t even on MySpace yet.  Extremely epic, and a must-have.

Of course, that’s not to say that it’s perfect.  The cover art is a little creepy, and the website mentions a song from The Almost, which wasn’t in my .zip file.  I won’t be surprised if there’s an update with the song in it soon enough.  Even so, those are minor details.  Get this, right, now.  Seriously.  Do it.  Now:

-Tooth & Nail/Solid States’s Fuel Sampler-

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’m totally digging the Children 18:3, FM Static, and Ivoryline right now, great stuff, and I’m not nearly through the sampler yet.  What are your favorite songs?

Tags: And Then There Were None, As Cities Burn, August Burns Red, Becoming the Archetype, Children 18:3, Copeland, Corey Crowder, Emery, Family Force 5, fm Static, Haste the Day, Hawk Nelson, Ivoryline, Jonezetta, Living Sacrifice, mewithoutYou, MxPx, MyChildren MyBride, Neon Horse, Oh Sleeper, Secret & Whisper, Showbread, Since October, Surrogate, The Ascendicate, The Chariot, The Crucified, The Showdown, Thousand Foot Krutch, Trenches, Underoath

Free Music From Copeland

Today, I’ve got free music for you from Copeland. The song is “When You Thought You’d Never Stand Out” and it’s off of their previous album Eat, Sleep, Repeat.

Oh, and if you guys didn’t know, Copeland has a new album coming out tomorrow. It’s called You Are My Sunshine and its currently streaming on their myspace.

Edit: The stream is no longer on their myspace, though you can still check out 3 of the songs off of the new album.

-Copeland on Spin.com-

Tags: Copeland

Christmas Series: Day 8 – Rush of Fools and Aaron Marsh of Copeland

It’s officially 6 days till Christmas. That means four more Christmas download for this year. And since I have so many left, I’ve had to start doubling up. Today I’ve got free Christmas music from Rush of Fools and Aaron Marsh of Copeland. I’ll begin with Aaron. He recently posted “A Merry Little Christmas” on his personal Myspace page. Like most of the Myspace downloads before, you need to be a Myspace user before you can download the songs. The song itself is a nice, mellow, beautiful Christmas song. Thanks to Logan and Snedekerdesignz for submitting this.

-Download “A Merry Little Christmas”-

Now for Rush of Fools. They have recorded “O Come All Ye Faithful” and put it up for download on their website. All you need to do is type your email address and zip code and you can download it as easy as that. It’s awesome.

-Get “O Come All Ye Faithful”-

Also, I am asking everyone to please comment about your favorite Christmas cookie or candy. Recipes are optional. Have fun!

Tags: Aaron Marsh, Copeland, Rush of Fools

Uprising Festival Digital Sampler w/ Relient K, Mae, Copeland

On September 16 in Irvine, California, there was a festival. The festival was named Uprising Festival. This festival had some bands. The bands names were Relient K, Mae, Copeland, and a guy named Dustin Kensrue, and a bunch of others. The people who made the festival put a digital sampler on Purevolume to help get the word out about the festival. This sampler was called the Uprising Festival Digital Sampler, and it has songs from Relient K, Mae, Copeland, and Dustin Kensrue. It turns out, that though Sep. 16 is long pasted, the sampler remains. As I mention before, it has a song from each of the four headliners. They are:

“Who I Am Hate Who I’ve Been” – Relient K
“Anything” – Mae
“Pin Your Wings” – Copeland
“Folk Song” – Dustin Kensrue

While Relient K needs no introduction, I suppose I should probably need to introduce the other three. Mae is a band. I am not quite sure how to describe them, except they sound a little like Ruth. Copeland is a band as well. They sound a little like what you would get if you crossed Mae and Anberlin. Dustin Kensrue is the lead singer of Thrice. While Thrice isn’t consider Christian hardcore, Dustin is a Christian and, well, you can read about it here.

Update: Sadly, the above songs have been removed.

Tags: Copeland, Dustin Kensrue, Mae, Relient K