California’s OPM’s Golden State of Mind was released in August, and features a diverse collaborations with Jim Perkins (acoustic folk), Pato Banton (reggae), Big B (rap/hip hop) and Jamie Allensworth (soul/funk).

This album is mostly chill reggae, but with a small splash of rap - mostly through collaboration with Big B & Dirtball. This is also radio-reggae, so if you’re looking for reggae dubs, you might want to look elsewhere - however fans of reggae should really enjoy the mix of rock, rap, reggae (and even punk!).

This band first exploded on the reggae scene with their major label (Atlantic) debut 2000 album, Menace To Sobriety, mostly due to their popular skater song, “Heaven Is a Halfpipe”.

They left Atlantic and have been with Suburban Noize Records since 2004.

The one clear song that I think is such a good song is “Family & Friends”. There are two mixes on this album, the Saber mix seems to stress certain music riffs/beats, but the original mix I thought was just fine - if not better as is. I think mostly because you can hear the vocals more clearly on the original mix.

It looks like they’ve been touring all summer long, and continuing:

PS, I never found out what OPM stands for. Is it for “Other People’s Money”?

You probably don’t know this, but I often get interested potential writers with interesting proposals for music angles. One of them included someone who wanted to write about Christian music, so I requested some of this genre of music from our PR people. When it came to actually producing reviews, that person was never heard from again.

I haven’t gotten a Christian album in a while, but this one recently turned up: the self-titled album by the artist simply known as “Stephanie”.

Surely she must know that she’s not the only musician called Stephanie? I had a heck of a hard time looking up her myspace/website.

With the exception of the live recording of “Wake up Arise”, all of these songs are studio-recorded and mixed. It sounds very clear and professional - including the live song.

The closest “rock” song is the ironically named “Back to the Rock”, featuring pianos and Céline Dion-style singing and wooing. I did enjoy her songs when it had more than a few instrument arrangement, like “The Rain”, “Through Christ” (electric guitar!), and “Back to the Rock”, as they seem to bring more of a full-music experience for me - at least for this album.

I can understand the route to keep it simple (either with just pianos or acoustic guitar), because I felt they were trying to spotlight Stephanie’s vocals. If you like vocals and minimal music, songs to check out are “Now I Know”, “Bless Those Beside Me”, and “Take Away”.

The overall feel of this album is that it’s Christian pop music, at times inspirational. If you enjoy other Christian pop acts like Amy Grant, this should fit right in. After a few listen, you forget that it’s even Christian, despite the obvious religious overtones.

If you’re in the Texas area and just generally like pop music, you should check her out:

14 Sep 2008 Word of Love Church Hurst, Texas
28 Sep 2008 Lighthouse Fellowship Church Ft.Worth, Texas
24 Oct 2008 Seekers Coffee Shop Hurst, Texas

This band doesn’t have anything to do with death, sans for their gloomy “Death Doom and Destruction”. This song is actually pretty good, sampling some speech from George Bush.

This band have been around since 1984 (WTF!) and currently based out of Canterbury, New Zealand, according to their myspace.

By 1986, this band was in top form with their self-titled album featured in Spin Magazine and all over the college radio airwaves.

Their sixth and latest album is called That’s What All The Girls Say, released this year. Just look at their cover art, featuring what looks like a “serious” Cubism style - yet showing a pop-art style of a boat captain to the right. Maybe I’m over analyzing it, but this has a very serious and a not-so-serious tone to it.

This also reflects in their songs, some songs have modern social commentaries to them, like the “Death” song mentioned above to “Pluto’s Not A Planet Anymore”. Other songs (”Son of a Street Fighting Man”, “Girls!”) are just fun.

Other trends I notice from this band is that they have a late 50s “oldies but goodies” feel to them. Check out “Little Baby You’re Mine” and “Ponsonby Waltz”, both are well worth a look if you love classic oldies songs - done by a modern band.

PS, Gavin Buxton’s NZ accent definitely shows up on “Just Another Kick” and “Son of a Street Fighting Man”. I love it!

Since we already mentioned the life-inspiration songs of Stephanie, I thought it would be fun to balance it with a little bit of the Dark Side. Usually I reserve this sort of music for Dr Soup, as this is a death (read: Satan) metal band from Sweden.

I was actually pretty impressed with the production on this album, it doesn’t sound too “cookie monster” but it’s clear that their inspiration lies in death metal. Even though I think some of their songs sounds like operatic metal (especially on “Carcess Symphony”).

I thought “Forever Mournful” was the stand-out track on this album - and I’ll tell you why. You have Nephente’s demonic/agonizing vocals (I’m not even sure what he’s saying!!) with a counterpoint of a sweet, angelic voice (no idea who’s singing as the promo copy I have doesn’t have any liner notes). The song lends itself to an epic feel as its theme seem to flow right into “Adrift Towards Eternity” (with its sweet violins and thunderstorm soundclip).

Speaking of epic, check out “Boulevard Black” - the very first song that Netherbird recorded. This is a fourteen minute, ultizing lots of guitar, bird sounds (crows?), pianos, and includes a semi-cheesy voice over that seems to sound like an old 80s horror movie. Even the reprise song have a feel of Phantom of the Opera with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

The most surprising thing I found out is that Target.com is carrying their CD. Wow, right? Apparently there is a standard release and a collector’s edition - as usual, I always suggest getting the deluxe version if you can swing it.