P.O.D. - Murdered Love

After coming off of what is often referred to as one of their weakest albums, P.O.D. is back with an anticipated new record. The styles found on Murdered Love echo previous albums such as Southtown and Satellite. Lyrically, this album is one of their boldest when it comes to speaking out about their faith, with just a few "party band" tracks included. Some of the album highlights are "Murdered Love," which is an aggressive track about the Crucifixion of Jesus and "Higher," which is a rap-infused/melodic track where lead singer Sonny Sandoval sings about Heaven, and his anticipation to spend eternity with God. P.O.D. slows things down on "Beautiful", where Sandoval sings about a girl who cuts herself to relieve the pain in her life, and he's telling her (and everyone) that "Life is beautiful, share a little love with the whole wide world." And "You're beautiful to me." "On Fire" sounds similar in content and style to Thousand Foot Krutch's "I Get Wicked," and would almost fit on their new record better than P.O.D.'s. "Panic and Run" closes the album on the Christian retail version, and opens to wildlife sounds and has a "punk rock/reggae" vibe which then goes into a metalcore bridge. The bonus track found on the mainstream release, and also the most controversial track, "I Am," has several bleeped f-words laced within the song. The song itself has a redeeming message, a sinner looking for grace and rescue, but unfortunately the swearing overshadows it. While this album features some of their strongest work to date, it also has their weakest. "West Coast Rock Steady" and "Bad Boy" are among the latter. Still, Murdered Love is quite an improvement from Angels and Serpents, and if listeners will look past the controversy associated with "I Am", they'll be sure to find some gems on here.