The Free Christian Music Blog

Free Christmas Song from MxPx

Okay, this isn’t technically a Christmas song – “Auld Lange Syne” is traditionally more of a New Year’s song.  But that doesn’t change the fact that you can download MxPx’s version of the song (from the band’s new Punk Rawk Christmas album) for free, through the band’s website. It’s very punk, checking in at just 1 minute, 36 seconds long, but MxPx crams a lot of rock in to that time.  Enjoy!

-“Auld Lange Syne” on MxPx.com-

Tags: MxPx

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

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

Free Download of MxPx’s New Single “Contention”

MxPx, one of the oldest Christian punk rock bands that are still around, is going to release their new radio single, “Contention”, soon, and to help promote it…

They are giving it away. Yes, indeed.  You can download “Contention” in all it’s 1:18 second glory from Pollstar, for free.  It’s only going to be available till September 18, so you’ll want to move quickly.

-Pollstar.com-

Besides the new single, two new MxPx tidbits are that MxPx could have a new cover CD out sometime soon, and the music video for “Contention” has also been released on Buzznet.  It looks pretty old school, combining war footage with the band playing.  Anyway, you can check that out.

Tags: MxPx

Brand New Tooth and Nail / Solid State Sampler

This could very well be the biggest news in free music since MyFreeMusicFriday.com shut down.  Only this time, it’s good news.

Tooth and Nail and Solid State Records have teamed up again to create the ultimate free sampler once again.  (The last one was the Hey! sampler, last year.)  This time, it’s full of free new and unreleased songs from the latest and greatest artists on Tooth and Nail.  To save time, I’ll just post the track listing.  It speaks for itself.

• Children 18:3 – “LCM”
• The Classic Crime – “Abracadavers”
• Underoath – “In Regards To Myself (Live)”
• Capital Lights – “Outrage!”
• Ivoryline – “Be Still and Breathe”
• Sever Your Ties – “Captive”
• August Burns Reds – “Composure”
• Secret and Whisper – “XOXOXO”
• MYCHILDREN MYBRIDE – “HEADSHOT!”
• Oh, Sleeper – “Vices Like Vipers”
• Inhale Exhale – “I Needed A Spaceship (Instead I Got Problems)”
• Destroy the Runner – “Mr. & Mrs. Cuckoldom”
• Emery – “The Party Song”
• MxPx – “Shut It Down”
• The Becoming – “I Cry”
• Anberlin – “The Haunting”
• Demon Hunter – “Storm the Gates of Hell”
• Once Nothing – “The Dust of A Town”
• The Famine – “Scar the Earth”
• Advent – “Blackout”
• The Chariot – “And Shot Each Other”
• Soul Embraced – “Curtain of Deceit”
• Showbread – “The Pig”
• Search the City – “Son of a Gun”
• Family Force 5- “Fever”
• Run Kid Run – “Captives Come Home”
• Far-less – “A Toast To Bad Taste”
• Norma Jean – “Robots 3 Humans 0″

You can get all of the mp3s for free, in one .zip file, just by entering your name, email, and country of residence at the website.  Tooth and Nail will them email you the link for the sampler.

Standout tracks are Anberlin’s “The Haunting”, which is a hauntingly beautiful Cities b-side, Capital Lights’ “Outrage!”, which is so unbelievable happy and catchy, it should be a controlled substance.  Capital Lights is one of the best power-pop bands I’ve ever heard, and a must-hear for Hello Kelly and Eleventyseven fans.

For hardcore fans, “Vices Like Vipers” by new hardcore band Oh, Sleeper, is amazing.  Tons of lyrical depth, plenty of screaming, eerie choruses, the works.  And you can’t go wrong with Demon Hunter, Norma Jean, The Chariot, Inhale Exhale, and August Burns Red.

Actually, most of the songs on this are must-hear.  Packed with new and old songs, this is one sampler you don’t want to miss.  After all, it’s free!

-Tooth & Nail and Solid State Fuel Sampler-

Tags: Advent, Anberlin, August Burns Red, Capital Lights, Children 18:3, Demon Hunter, Destroy the Runner, Emery, Family Force 5, Far-less, Inhale Exhale, Ivoryline, MxPx, MyChildren MyBride, Norma Jean, Oh Sleeper, Once Nothing, Run Kid Run, Search the City, Secret and Whisper, Sever Your Ties, Showbread, Soul Embraced, The Becoming, The Chariot, The Classic Crime, The Famine, Underoath

Summer Slam Vol. 2 Free Sampler from IVM

Free music today courtesy of Indie Vision Music. They recently uploaded Summer Slam Vol. 2, the biggest free Christian music sampler since One Dark Summer. This thing is huge! You can get 52 songs absolutely free! You don’t even need to give a email address.

In the 52 songs, there are tracks by MxPx, Project 86, Cool Hand Luke, Esterlyn, I Am Terrified, Stavesacre, The Glorious Unseen, Means, The Echoing Green, and many talented independent artists. The full artist listing is on the page.

I haven’t had a opportunity to hear the songs on this sampler yet, thanks to my internet connection, but I’m drooling over it right now. I know for sure that a couple of songs are rare finds – I haven’t seen the MxPx one anywhere else, and both the Project 86 and Stavesacre were iTunes Exclusives. Which is just one more reason to get this awesome sampler.

I also heard a that the other free downloads on Indie Vision Music could be disappearing soon. It could be a rumor, but if you haven’t yet, make sure you download all of the goodies before tomorrow. All of these links are to free music, making this the biggest amount of music I’ve ever featured. Check it out, enjoy it. It’s after all, it’s free!

Tags: Cool Hand Luke, Esterlyn, I Am Terrified, Means, Mendelson, MxPx, Pennylane, Project 86, Stavesacre, The Comeback Tour, The Echoing Green, The Glorious Unseen

"Under the Watchful Eyes Of T.J. Eckleburg" {And Other Weird Song Titles}

Here it is! The highly anticipated list of weird, strange, random, unusual, and wise, song titles. When I first announced this, I had no idea the response I would get. I also had no idea that such interesting titles existed. Therefore, without further ado, the moment you’ve been waiting for:

• Relient K – “Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care”
• Five Iron Frenzy – “At Least I’m Not Like All Those Other Old Guys”
• The Devil Wears Prada – “Reptar, King of the Ozone”
• Daniel Amos / The Swirling Eddies – “Donna Nietche And Her Super Race Of Kick-Boxing Uber Parrots”
• Daniel Amos / The Swirling Eddies – “Arthur Fhardy’s Yodeling Party”
• Five Iron Frenzy – “The Phantom Mullet”
• Search the City – “In This Scene You’re Just An Extra”
• Showbread – “I Had Music In My Heart, But Now My My Heart Is Broken”
• House Of Heroes – “You Are the Judas of The Cheerleading Squad”
• Relient K – “Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, And Things Like Chemistry”
• Underoath – “I Have Ten Friends and A Crowbar that Say You Ain’t Gonna Do, Jack”
• MYCHILDREN MYBRIDE – “A Bayonet Doesn’t Make You A Hero”
• Blue Cadet and the Brave December – “Brass Knuckles Won’t Do You Any Good In Soul To Soul Combat”
• The Devil Wears Prada – “Hey John, What’s Your Name Again”
• Send Out Scuds – “This is So Cliche That it Will Rot Your Teeth”
• Showbread – “Oh! Emetophobia”
• Underoath – “It’s Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door”
• The Almost – “They Say You Can Never Write I Told You So In A Song But Here I Go DEMO”
• Falling Up – “The Dark Side of Indoor Track Meets”
• Project 86 – “The Forces of Radio Have Dropped A Viper In The Rhythm Section”
• Emery – “You Think You’re Nickel Slick (But I Got Your Penny Change)”
• Rich Mullins – “Alrightokuhhuhamen”
• MxPx – “Another Song About T.V.”
• Five Iron Frenzy – “Wizard Needs Food, Badly”
• David Crowder*Band – “O God Where Are You Now (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)”
• Anberlin – “A Heavy Hearted Work of Staggering Genius”
• Sullivan – “Under the Watchful Eyes Of T.J. Eckleburg”
• Anberlin – “There Is No Mathematics to Love and Loss”
• Showbread – “A Llama Eats a Giraffe (And Vice Versa)
• Nodes of Ranvier – “Nagheenanajar”
• Maylene And The Sons of Disaster – “Bang! The Witch Is Dead”
• Norma Jean – “I Used To Hate Cell Phones, Now I Hate Car Accidents”
• Demon Hunter – “Our Faces Fall Apart”
• Daniel Amos / The Swirling Eddies – “(Near Sighted Girl With Approaching) Tidal Wave”
• Daniel Amos / The Swirling Eddies – “(It’s The Eighties So Where’s Our) Rocket Pack”
• DC Talk – “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
• Gwen Stacy – “What Will Happen If I Hit Enter?”
• The Chariot – “If Wishes Were Horses, More Beggars Would Ride Them”
• The Devil Wears Prada – “Swords, Dragons, and Diet Coke”
• The Devil Wears Prada – “This Song Is Called”
• The Chariot -
  1. Back To Back
  2. They Faced Each Other
  3. They Drew Their Swords
  4. And Shot Each Other
  5. The Deaf Policemen
  6. Heard This Noise
  7. Then Came To Kill
  8. The Two Dead Boys
  9. Forgive Me Nashville
  10. The Trumpet

And my two personal favorites:

• The Chariot – “Someday In The Event That Mankind Figures Out What It Is That This World Revolves Around, Thousands Of People Will Be Shocked And Perplexed To Find Out That It Was Not Them. Sometimes This Includes Me.”

• Gwen Stacy – “Hey God, This Song’s For You. I Hope You Like It.”

Pretty crazy, huh? Let me know what you’re favorites are by leaving a comment on this post.

One other thing, if you want to copy the list and use it on your blog, Myspace, Facebook, etc, go ahead. Spread the weirdness. All I ask is that you link back to The Free Christian Music Blog (http://www.thefreechristianmusicblog.com).

Tags: Anberlin, Blue Cadet and the Brave December, Daniel Amos, David Crowder Band, DC Talk, Demon Hunter, Emery, Falling Up, Five Iron Frenzy, Gwen Stacy, House of Heroes, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, MxPx, MyChildren MyBride, Norma Jean, Project 86, Relient K, Rich Mullins, Search the City, Send Out Scuds, Showbread, Sullivan, The Almost, The Chariot, The Devil Wears Prada, The Swirling Eddies, Underoath

SpiralFrog Review – Is it worth it?

I’ve been reviewing the ad-supported free music service SpiralFrog this week. It’s a mixed bag, with some highlights, low-lights, and interesting song selection. The following is my review.

Signing up is reasonably easy, although I had to download a third party plug-in to access the site. Before I could do anything with the site, I also had to download the “SpiralFrog Download Manager”, which I’ll get to a bit later. After that, I got in.

To start with, the first thing you notice is the advertising. Several ads banners and ad boxes. It reminds me of another teen-oriented website, Myspace. I was able to hide most of the advertisements using AdBlock Plus. The ads aren’t too terribly annoying.

The selection is…interesting. For Christian music, they have a couple of pretty cool MxPx CDs, the Elms’ Chess Hotel, the Flyleaf EP and the new Flyleaf Special Edition album, and several interesting String Tributes CD. There’s a String Tribute to Flyleaf, Casting Crowns, and Underoath. So if you’ve ever wondered what “Does Anybody Hear Her”, “It’s A Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door”, and “I’m So Sick” sounds like rendered in guitars, violins and cellos, now is your chance to find out. There’s even a documentary-CD from POD, which was tells the band’s history. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the band had anything to do with it. That’s all I could find in a week. There may be more.

Another feature of the website is the music videos. I was able to find several MxPx videos (Including my personal favorite “Responsibility”.), as well as Flyleaf’s latest, “All Around Me”.

The system itself is rather buggy. The website is slow, taking a long time to load pages. It’s been getting faster, but I can’t help but wonder if the site is slowing browsing down to make sure people view the advertisements. Could be it’s just a popular site too though. I don’t know. The SpiralFrog Download Manger runs all the time, even when the service is not in use. I’ve noticed it taking from around four megabytes to 11 megabytes of RAM. It’s not a huge resource hog, but enough to annoy you.

There are some pretty serious limitations to what you can do with the music and videos. Songs will only play on certain Mp3 Players (iPods and my Sansa se130 aren’t supported), and only on two different devices, and only then if you sync it with you computer every thirty days. You aren’t allowed to burn CD with any songs you download. You also have to visit the website and renew your membership every thirty days to continue playing download songs and videos on your computer.

In conclusion, you probably shouldn’t plan on becoming a long term member unless you are a fanatic MxPx or Flyleaf fan. For everyone else, I would recommend surfing the site awhile. Maybe become a member to try the site out. Download some songs, watch some videos. After all, if you don’t like it, you can always let you subscription expire.

Update: And even if you let your subscription expire, you will still get email from SpiralFrog, asking you to come back.  Ask me how I know this.

Tags: Casting Crowns, Flyleaf, MxPx, P.O.D., Payable on Death, the Elms, Underoath

Free Music from Ivoryline, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, and More!

Fuse.tv has just put up a new sampler with some new songs from Ivoryline, MxPx, Secret & Whisper, Jon Foreman from Switchfoot, and Far-less. It’s called the “Fuse Dozen Days of Downloads”. Most of the songs are available else where, but a couple are so new that I’ve never even heard them.

Though you have to scroll down through maybe ten or so mainstream songs to find it, the first song on the thing is Far-less, “Toast to Bad Taste”. After that is Ivoryline’s new song “Be Still and Breathe”, followed by a song from Jon Foreman’s new solo EP, Fall. The song is called “The Cure for Pain”. After that is MxPx’s “Secret Weapon” and Secret & Whisper’s “XOXOXO”. I’m not familiar with Secret & Whisper, besides knowing that they are new to Tooth & Nail Records and have a CD called The Great White Whale coming out.

Tags: Far-less, Ivoryline, Jon Foreman, MxPx, Secret and Whisper, Switchfoot

A Late Christmas Download from Surrogate

Today’s download is a late Christmas present from Surrogate, who recorded “Christmas Don’t Be Late” (also know as “The Chipmonk Song”) as a free download on their Myspace page. I wasn’t sure how the song would sound, being sung by anyone other then Alvin and the Chipmunks, but I think they did it well enough.

Tags: MxPx, Surrogate