The Free Christian Music Blog

Announcing The 2009 Free Christian Music Awards Winners

It’s time!  The votes are all in, and it’s time to announce the winners in the first annual Free Christian Music Awards!  You helped picked the nominees, and you voted on the winners – so read on to find out how your favorites did!

Free Song of the Year:

1. Switchfoot – “Mess of Me”
2. Owl City – “Fireflies”
3. Tie: Thousand Foot Krutch – “Bring Me to Life” / Relient K – “Forget and Not Slow Down”

With 41% of the vote, Switchfoot is clear winner in free song of the year, which really isn’t a surprise – Switchfoot’s dedicated fans gave “Mess of Me” a lead from the start, and the fact that it was a radio smash for the band didn’t hurt any.  Taking second place with 34% of the vote, Owl City’s wonderfully-popular “Fireflies”, followed by a surprise tie for third between Thousand Foot Krutch & Relient K.

Free Album of the Year:

1. We Shot The Moon – “Fear and Love”
2. Esterlyn – “Lamps”
3. MercyMe – “10 Live”

The award for “Free Album of the Year” was the closest of all the races this year, with We Shot The Moon’s Fear and Love beating Esterlyn’s Lamps for the title by only 1%, and MercyMe’s digital-only live album 10 Live only 3% behind Esterlyn for a respectable third place finish.

Free Christmas Song of the Year:

1. Relient K – “I Celebrate the Day”
2. Thousand Foot Krutch – “Jingle Bell Rock”
3. TobyMac – “This Christmas”

Relient K may have tied for third for “Free Song of the Year”, but they dominated “Free Christmas Song of the Year” from the start, with “I Celebrate the Day” finishing with 1/3 of the vote.  Not far behind, with 22%, Thousand Foot Krutch’s rocking rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” takes second place, and TobyMac’s “This Christmas” takes third.

Free EP of the Year:

1. House of Heroes – “The End Is Not The End EP”
2. B.Reith – “The B.Reith EP”
3. Esterlyn – “Mending The Meaning EP”

2009 was a good year to be House of Heroes – not only was their The End Is Not The End EP the undisputed winner of “Free EP of the Year” with a whopping 49% of the vote, but the same EP was also the most-nominated of any of the songs or albums in the running.  B.Reith picks up a strong second place finish with 25% of the vote, followed by Esterlyn at third with 20%.

Free Sampler/Compilation of the Year:

1. Tooth & Nail Records – “Fuel Sampler 2009″
2. Huntington University – “Picks”
3. Creation Festival – “Creation Festival 2009 iTunes Sampler”

Taking first place in the coveted “Free Sampler/Compilation of the Year” category by a wide margin is the 2009 version of Tooth & Nail Record’s Fuel sampler, with the underdog and my personal favorite, Huntington University’s free compilation Picks taking second place, followed by Creation Festival’s 2009 iTunes sampler in third.

Most Giving Artist of 2009:

1. House of Heroes
2. Esterlyn
3. MercyMe

“Most Giving Artist of 2009″ is a special category – rather then being nominated by fans, those in the running earned a spot by being exceptionally generous with free music this year.  In an impressive (and much deserved) second #1 victory, the title goes to House of Heroes, with Esterlyn in second, and MercyMe taking rounding out the category in third.

Well, that’s it for this year – what are your thought on the results?  I don’t know about you, but I’m sure looking forward to seeing what’s in store for 2010.  Also, if you’d like to see the full results of the voting, feel free to check out this page for a full list of nominees & how they did.

Tags: B. Reith, Esterlyn, House of Heroes, MercyMe, Owl City, Relient K, Switchfoot, Thousand Foot Krutch, TobyMac, We Shot the Moon

Fighting From the Ground Up Vol. 2

I’m finally getting around to listening to Indie Vision Music’s latest musical offering, the Fighting From the Ground Up Vol. 2 sampler.  I’ve only heard the first couple of songs at this point (I’m listening as I type), but I can tell you with all certainty that this, like the rest of Indie Vision Music’s samplers, it is well worth your time.

Since it is so big (over 50 artists), rather then attempt to review it, I’m just going to let you listen for yourselves.  There’s definitely some good tracks included, and then the inevitable not-quite-as-good-tracks, but all around I’d say it’s worth downloading, especially if you enjoy independent music.  After all, it’s free!  What do you have to lose?

-Fighting From the Ground Up Vol. 2 from Indie Vision Music-

Enjoy!

Tags: A Study in Scarlet, After the Anthems, Alakrity, Another Chance for the Lost, Atombender, Auburn, Beauti, Bidwell, Blood and Water, Blueprints of the Heart, Brave Saint Saturn, Camaria, Cathy Crescendo, Close Your Eyes, Cool Hand Luke, Crimson Refuge, Designer, Divided By Friday, Dogwood, Esterlyn, Everfound, Flynn, Garden, Good Kids Bad Ideas, Good Luck Varsity, Grave Robber, Great Awakening, Hero Among Us, I Am Alpha and Omega, Incrave, Jespere, Joel Hosler, Lifestory: Monologue, Love Begotten, Morse, Mr. Citizen, Nine O Five, O' Brother, Ockums Razor, ReVrence, Riverside Ceasefire, Since Forever, So Long Forgotten, Stonehigh, The Access, The Advantage, The Distance Between, The Molly Chambers, The New Divide, The Set Apart, This Is Luke, To the Tune of Lillies, Ursa Robotica, We Are Voices, We Became the Sun, What If This Dream Is All We Have?, Willet, Without a Shadow

Esterlyn

Esterlyn is one of my favorite bands.  Most of you have probably heard me say that at least once before.  Not to sounds like a broken record, but it’s true.  I really, really like Esterlyn.  Not only is Esterlyn composed of several great guys, not only do they make amazing music with sweet lyrics, they also give away lots of free music.  Thus, today’s post.

(By the way, you might want to brace yourself.  This is very exciting news.)

Esterlyn is giving away their ENTIRE debut CD, Lamps, and their ENTIRE acoustic EP Mending the Meaning.  Both are excellent albums, and they are free!  You can’t top that!  Seriously, now you have no excuse for not giving them a listen. 

I could go on and on and on about how good both of these CDs are, but I don’t have time for that.  Just now that they are amazing and awesome and I highly recommend them.  You can download both on Esterlyn’s website (it’s also on their MySpace) through NoiseTrade.

Now, NoiseTrade gives you two options – “Tell 5 Friends” or “Pay What You Want”.  So long as you have at least 5 friends (most people do), you can put their email addresses in and get the CD for free.  They’ll get one email, telling how they can download the music too, and you’ll get an email with the link to download both Lamps and Mending the Meaning.  Or, if you’d like, you can pay however much you want for the CDs to support the artist.  Either way, you wind up with some great new tunes.  Enjoy! 

-Esterlyn.com-

Also, I’d like to point out that with these two CDs now free, and the Christmas song Esterlyn record last year and gave away in an Indie Vision Music sampler, you can get every song Esterlyn has released thus far for free.  Pretty amazing if you ask me.

Tags: Esterlyn

Free Track from Esterlyn

I’m really, really excited about today’s download.  It’s from Esterlyn, and the song is “Sweet Love”.  It’s from Esterlyn’s brand new acoustic EP, Mending The Meaning.  I know I’m totally biased, since Esterlyn was my favorite new band of last year, but the song is really very good.  Amazing.  And the best part is it’s free from Indie Vision Music.  Needless to say, I highly recommend it.  Enjoy!

-“Sweet Love” on Indie Vision Music-

Tags: Esterlyn

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?

Tags: BarlowGirl, Before Their Eyes, Burden of a Day, Capital Lights, Esterlyn, Fighting The Fall, House of Heroes, Jonathon Steingard, Leeland, Number One Gun, Run Kid Run, Sanctus Real, Staple, The Becoming, The Devil Wears Prada, Three Cord Wonder

Christmas Series: Day 11 – A Very Indie Christmas

Indie Vision Music have created yet another awesome sampler – only this time, it’s a early indie Christmas present.  It’s got some great Christmas songs (most notably MxPx and Esterlyn) plus around 45 all-year-round-tracks from bands like Kiros, Ocean Is Theory, My Epic, Saints Never Surrender, and more.  Totally sweet.  Check it out:

-A Very Indie Christmas from Indie Vision Music-

Tags: A Common Occurance, A Hope For Home, A Moments Notice, Aevory Nash, All Have Fallen, All In, All Or Nothing, Arkeo, Awake! Awake!, Blood and Water, Blue Cadet and the Brave December, Camaria, Cinthia Mejia, Coolfield, Curbsquirrels, Endeavor the Seas, Esterlyn, Failure to Excel, Fayda, Goodnight Caudfield, Grave Robber, Harmony, Hazel and Vine, Hope for the Dying, Jerome Madigan, Just Like Josiah, Kevin and the Octaves, Kiros, Knee Deep in Stereo, Lilly Among Thorns, Main Line Riders, Mendelson, MxPx, My Epic, Now the Nursery, Ocean is Theory, Onelastcall, Out of Hiding, Party or Die!, Push Push Pull, Safe Haven, Saints Never Surrender, The Advantage, The Conception, The Mess, The Molly Chambers, The Rekoning, Theocracy, Tim Serdynski, To Tell, Ursa Robotica, Venia, Yours For Mine

New Sampler from Indie Vision Music

Indie Vision Music has put out many, many samplers recently, and though many of them are no longer posted online, they have taken the best songs from the seven samplers (sans the heavy stuff, which might be getting its own “best of” sampler) and put them into one. What you get is free songs from Chasing Victory, Project 86, Stavesacre, Ever Stays Red, Esterlyn, and 35 other awesome bands.

I haven’t been able to listen to everything yet, as I have not only been busy but also overwhelmed with this and another even bigger sampler that all of you will probably see in the near future. You might get spoiled this week, thats all I’m saying.

-The Best of IVM Vol. 1-

-James

Edit:  Apparently the wonderful people at IVM are working on another compilation that they hope to put out in time for Christmas.  If you’re in a band and have a quality recording they are interested in possibly using your song in the compilation.

Tags: Amaradio, Amen. The Animal, Arkeo, Avery Pkwy, Blood & Water, Burning Tree Project, Cathy Crescendo, Chasing Victory, Darkroom, Dennis Zender, Dogwood, Erika Soto, Esterlyn, Ever Stays Red, Failure to Excel, Fairgreen, Finchley, Forever Changed, Hands, Kessler, Kings to You, Makeshift3, Man Alive, My Jeremiah, Ocean is Theory, One Hot Minute, Orion Walsh, Paul Wright, Project 86, Quick and the Dead, Say You Will, Send Out Scuds, Sleep for Sleepers, Stavesacre, The Apprentice, The Echoing Green, The Trade, Thrush, Tumbledown, We Shot the Moon

Hearts Bleed Passion Vol. 4 – Free Massive Sampler from IVM

YES! I’m finally going to write up Hearts Bleed Passion Vol. 4. I’ve gotten more emails about this then any other sampler in the history of this site. After waiting a couple of weeks before I could download it, and then another week for me to actually listen to enough of it to post (I still haven’t finished it… that’s how big it is!)

Well, like I said, this is one huge sampler. I counted 59 different songs. The full file is around 300 megabytes. Make sure your internet connection can handle it before you try to download it.

I wish I could go through and recommend all of the songs on the sampler, but I don’t have the time to type up a list. I’ll just say that the sampler has some awesome songs, some good songs, and some that just aren’t my cup o’ tea. There’s hardcore, punk, acoustic, rock, pop, and rap, pretty much something for everyone.

-Hearts Bleed Passion Vol. 4 on Indie Vision Music-

PS: I’d love to hear what your favorite song(s) are from the sampler are! Leave a comment and let me know! I’ll even go first.

Tags: Aevory Nash, Agnes the Mother, Ajax Starglider, Amen. The Animal, Aneirin, Avery Pwky, Blood & Water, Braveheart, Broken Scarlet, Cathy Crescendo, Cookbook & Uno Mas, Crimson Thorn, Dennis Zender, Dominic Balli, DrawCard, Escape from Emptiness, Esterlyn, Fairgreen, Falling Tsar, Fellow, Finchley, Freddie Bruno, Goodnight Darling, Hands, Kiven, Lewis Vs. Clark, Mammuth, Mendelson, Michael Sandoval, Morse, My Jeremiah, News from Verona, Nihilo, NoiZ, Now the Nursery, Ocean is Theory, One Hot Minute, Orion Walsh, Our Proclaimation, Paul Wright, Pedestrian X, Photoside Cafe, Poorly Build Parachute, Ready the Way, Rene Velarde, Resting in Fragments, Rootdown, Ryan Brown, Say You Will, Second Thief, Sintax the Terrible, Sleep for Sleepers, Source of My Faith, The Advantage, The All Star Class, The Apprentice, The Dingees, The Mone Raths, The Tug Fork River Bend, This Is Luke, When Only Darkness Remains

Esterlyn Spotlight

Free music spotlight today on one of my personal favorites, a band called Esterlyn.  They have three different songs available online, all from their new CD Lamps.  There is also three more available, but I’ll get to that later…

First, about Esterlyn.  Please, keep in mind that I may be a little biased.  They are a indie rock band on Rooster Records.  It’s hard to explain who Esterlyn sounds like, because they don’t sound exactly like anyone.  If asked, I would probably say a bit of House of Heroes, some Mute Math, a good deal of Number One Gun, all while maintaining a they’re own sound.  Driving guitars, keyboards, clean vocals.

Like I said before, I love Esterlyn.  They are one of the few staples on my mp3 player, and are right up with The Wedding, Number One Gun, Disciple, Pillar, and Falling Up as my all-time favorites.  They are also without doubt Christians, and it shows in their lyrics.

In short, they are awesome. 

Anyway, the first song available is “Tie the Leaves”, on the Indie Vision Music Summer Slam Vol. 2 free sampler.  It’s the opening song to Lamps, and one of the catchiest songs I’ve ever heard.  It’s a fast, happy, and short song about how people attempt to copy other people, because they are afraid to be themselves.  Thus, they tie leaves on trees to protect themselves.  This one was at the top of my favorites list for at least a month.

Next is “Reveal Your Love”.  It’s basically a slower, guitar-driven indie-rock worship-song-prayer.  It’s available on the band’s MySpace, so long as you have a MySpace account and are signed in.  Also very good.  While you’re at the band’s MySpace, you can also watch a video about the story of the band’s name, and the debut music video “We All Need”.

Quite possibly the best song of all three, “Faster, Faster” is a catchy rock song.  It practically screams summer with the windows down, racing along the highway.  Unlike the other songs, this song is actually about a girl, and how she comes to accept Christ.  Good stuff.  This song is available on the Fighting from the Ground Up Vol. 1 free internet sampler, also released by Indie Vision Music.

Update: Thanks to CCMSingles, I know have another free Esterlyn song download!  The song is called “Kill Your Own Despair”, and it’s available on the Interlinc website.  It’s an excellent song, which used to be on the band’s MySpace as a free download.  Some of you may already have it, some may not.

Update:  Once again, thanks to CCMSingles for finding another free song by Esterlyn.  The song is “Emptiness”, and looks sweet.  The only downside is it replaced “Reveal Your Love” as the free song on the band’s MySpace.

And now for the bonuses.  Before Esterlyn was Esterlyn, some of the band members were part of a band called Grand Prize.  Stylistically, it was more like Jeremy Camp then the new Esterlyn, but if you want to get the old songs, go right ahead.  Jeremy Camp is cool too.    Three Grand Prize songs can be had on the groups MySpace profile.

-“Tie the Leaves” in Summer Slam Vol. 2-

-Esterlyn on MySpace-

-“Faster, Faster” in Fighting from the Ground Up Vol. 1-

-“Kill Your Own Despair” on Interlinc-

-Grand Prize on MySpace-

Tags: Esterlyn, Grand Prize

Free Music from Josh Wilson and Esterlyn

iTicket’s has some new free music this week from Josh Wilson and Esterlyn. Josh Wilson is a pop-rock artist on Sparrow Records. You can get his song and latest single “3 Minute Song” for free.

The bonus download this week is Esterlyn’s “Kill Your Own Despair”. As you may know, it’s one of the “Required Listening” songs here at The Free Chrisitan Music Blog. However, since the song was on MySpace, you had to be on MySpace to get it. For this week only, you can get it on iTickets. So do it. It’s a excellent softer rock song.

Tags: Esterlyn, Josh Wilson