The Free Christian Music Blog

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

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.

Tags: Capital Lights, Children 18:3, House of Heroes, mewithoutYou, Ocean is Theory, Oh Sleeper, Project 86, Sever Your Ties, Showbread, Sides of the North, Stavesacre, The Awkward Romance, The Classic Crime, The Dark Romantics, The Devil Wears Prada, The Human Flight Committee

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

Free Music from Showbread

Showbread’s new albums, Anorexia Nervosa is in stores on May 13, so to help Showbread fans celebrate, I’ve got some older free music from the band.

Going back to No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical, you can get two songs from the band (“Dead By Dawn” and “Mouth Like A Magazine”) on the group’s Purevolume. “Dead By Dawn” is a ode to one of Showbread’s favorite horror films, and “Mouth Like A Magazine” is about a gossip. Both are typical Showbread. To quote: “Raw Rock Kills”

Update: Anorexia and Nervosa have long since debuted.  But that won’t stop me from saying how wonderful they are.  Image a hardcore band writing a Max Lucado story, and then writing a raw rock soundtrack to the story.  That’s what Anorexia Nervosa is.  It’s beautiful, and yet very much Showbread.  Definitely, check them out!

Tags: Showbread

"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

3 Free Rare Showbread: Facebook

Free, older music today. Showbread has 3 free songs available on their Facebook profile. This is interesting because:

• Showbread is interesting.
• Free music is always cool.
• The songs are super old (think 2000-2001!)
• And it’s the first free music I’ve seen on Facebook.

Tags: Showbread

Free Showbread Download

Showbread has a reputation for being one of the craziest Christian band ever. Notice the snake–>
Now that I’ve warned you, you can surf over to the bands Myspace and download “Mouth Like A Magazine”, from the CD No Sir, Nihilism is Not Practical. It’s extremely energetic, raw rawk song about a girl who is a gossip. Also, you may want to check out Raw Rock Missions, a missions group the band started.

Tags: Showbread

11 Bands to Watch for in 2008

11. Stellar Kart. If we really can Expect the Impossible, it must be pretty cool.

10. Inhabited. Their new album Love has been getting good reviews already, and looks to be an great CD.

9. Inhale Exhale. After a great debut, their sophomore disk looks to be great as well.

8. Pillar. With the apparent return to their older style, For the Love of the Game looks to be a worth squeal continuation to the Pillar legacy.

7. Hawk Nelson. If past awesome-ness is a sign of future awesome-ness, they are in great shape.

6. The Afters. After, what, three years, the band return with their second album, which looks to be as good or better then then I Wish We All Could Win.

5. P.O.D. (Payable on Death). Overlooking there new CD, When Angels and Serpents Dance, would be a serious mistake.

4. Showbread. Is a so crazy. They are releasing two different CDs on the same day. Who know what will happen? For sheer unpredictability, you need to keep an eye on them.

3. Kutless. With a new CD supposedly on the way, the massively popular band will definitely be one to watch for.

2. Underoath. The hardcore phenomenon. The mere fact that they are doing a new CD has music fans around the world in desperate anticipation.

1. Family Force 5. In two years, they went from unknowns to one of the hottest bands in Christian music. With a new, untitled CD on the way, the dance party that is FF5 will likely continue to spread.

Honorably Mentions:

A Rotterdam November. Despite being unsigned and unknown, they landed a hit with “City Without a Heart” and look to be a promising band.

Fireflight. Looks Unbreakable.

Leeland. Blindside. Switchfoot. Anberlin. John Reuben. Krystal Meyers. Deserved to fit in the top 11, only I ran out of room.

Tags: A Rotterdam November, Blindside, Family Force 5, Fireflight, Hawk Nelson, Inhabited, Inhale Exhale, Kutless, Leeland, P.O.D., Pillar, Showbread, Stellar Kart, Switchfoot, The Afters, Underoath

One Dark Summer

Another Tooth & Nail-Solid State Purevolume Sampler! This one is huge. 32+ different song by that many artists. It’s awesome. If you like rock (Thousand Foot Krutch, The Almost, Jonezetta), punk (fm Static, Hawk Nelson, Run Kid Run), and/or hardcore (Underoath, Emery, Destroy the Runner), you have got to check this out! I can guarantee that if you enjoy loud music, you will find something you can listen to on here.

Get all 32+ Songs at Purevolume here now!

Note: You do need to give your email address to get the sampler. It’s worth it.

Update: During a recent upgrade, Purevolume.com removed all of the free samplers from the website. Including this one. So I’m sorry to say it’s no longer available. However, if you looked through the archives here on The Free Christian Music Blog, you could probably find some music that is just as good. I know it’s not the same, but it’s the best I have to offer, so please accept my humble condolences.

Tags: Anberlin, As Cities Burn, August Burns Red, Becoming the Archetype, Dead Poetic, Demon Hunter, Destroy the Runner, Emery, Fair, Far-less, fm Static, Haste the Day, Hawk Nelson, He Is Legend, Inhale Exhale, Jonezetta, Mae, mewithoutYou, Norma Jean, Project 86, Run Kid Run, Showbread, Spoken, Starflyer 59, Sullivan, The Almost, The Chariot, The Classic Crime, The Fold, Thousand Foot Krutch, Twelve Gauge Valentine, Underoath