Third Day at the Music Builds launch partyWhile in Nashville for Gospel Music Week in April, Third Day spoke at interviews and performed at showcases in anticipation of their July release. You might be surprised at one of the media outlets that spoke with the band that week.

Revelation has already proved to be replete with newness. New musical guests. New artist management. New producer. And now there is a new cover on Billboard magazine. Apparently the June 7th edition reached a new height - first time a Christian band made it onto the front cover.

The cover reads, "Third Day Christian Crossover? Daughtry's producer. Dave Matthews' management. An inside look at longtime rockers on the verge," The issue can be purchased at larger magazine outlets, or you can read the article here. It is full with interesting discussions about the past, present, and more importantly the future of this long-time band with new beginnings.

A must read about the potential outlook of Christian music, even if you are not a Third Day fan.

For everyone who wondered if they had seen the beginning of the end for Third Day, the band answers back with its best CD to date. From the opening track they proclaim "This is Who I Am."

"I’m the son of a good man, I’m the child of an angel," read the lyrics. "I’m the brother of a wild one, and I’m looking for direction, I’m the lover a beauty, I’m father of blessings, I’m the singer of a love song, but is that all I’m good for? This is who I am!"

Plot the trajectory of Ethan Luck's career on a graph, and the image would be odd. Unconventional, to say the least, and not because it would convey an unusual number of peaks and valleys. If anything, first glance leaves the impression Luck has travelled from one peak to another, to another. From one popular rock band to another popular rock band, to a third.

Perhaps this is deceiving, because nobody finds success without hardship, but it is the idea that a first glance will leave. Include the names of his bands on your graph, add a sound clip or two, and then the weirdness becomes apparent. Success is certainly not foreign to Ethan Luck, and neither is diversity.

As odd as it might seem for a pop/rock artist with such a formidable singing voice, Dave Pettigrew didn't spend his teen years before a full-length mirror learning to emulate powerhouse vocalists like Robert Plant, Luther Vandross or even Steve Perry. On the contrary, it was at the tender young age of five that Pettigrew's unlikely musical education began in earnest as he stationed himself in front of the family TV each week to catch a glimpse of Lennie Baker playing saxophone for doo wop revivalists Sha Na Na on the group's musically-based late `70s sitcom. Sufficiently impressed, he not only took up the instrument but continued playing it all the way up to the time of his entrance into the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. In fact, it wasn't until after he'd already been accepted to Berklee that Pettigrew first discovered, and subsequently decided to hone, his latent vocal talent.

KOCH Records’ Seattle-based alternative rock band and winner of the 2007 “MTV2 Dew Circuit Breakout,” The Myriad, is scheduled to release their highly anticipated sophomore project With Arrows, With Poise on May 13, 2008. In anticipation of the release, we asked the guys some questions about the album, MTV, and touring. Step inside to read more.

Steven Tracy: guitars, keys, programming

inR: We last sat down together at the Purple Door festival in August of 2005. Give me a short summary of some things that have happened with The Myriad since then.

Steven: Well, that's a big window of time, and it’s certainly been busy! With the exception of recording the album, we've been on the road. So nothing's really new there. Lots of miles, lots of interstate, and lots of clubs. Last year however was pretty special for us. We had a bit of a lineup change in who worked on the business stuff with us, so we felt this intense drive to write and record something really special. It was the first time in a while where it was really on our shoulders. We essentially locked ourselves up in the studio and just went out to make the record of our lives.

Here at inReview (and previously at cMusicWeb) we have been expressing our own blend of the typical annual "Best of" albums for several years. To fit our motto, "A Different Approach to Music," the best albums have transformed to most spun rather than the best new records. The choices expand to any music in any genre from any time. After all, do our staff and readers only listen only to new releases? I hope not!

About an hour before Switchfoot hit the stage in Ocean City, New Jersey on May 1st, they first heard the news that "This is Home" is going to be performed on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on May 13th. While announcing the song during their set, Jon Foreman told the crowd this "hot off the press" news.

"This is Home" was written for the upcoming Disney movie Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. A video for "This is Home" premiered on May 2nd on the Disney website. Jon Foreman shared the following on Switchfoot's website:

Earlier this year, Delirious? frontman Martin Smith gathered 12 of his singer/songwriter friends to pen a dozen or so songs for Compassionart, a charity that seeks to use music to generate income for the world's poorest citizens. Altogether, 22 songs were written, the first just released April 8 on Wow Hits 1. Some notable artists involved on the project included Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, and Steven Curtis Chapman as well as fellow Delirious? band member Stu Garrard.

Submitted by Dan Ficker - inReview.net webmaster

1. Mute Math Mute Math
There's no doubt - much like 2006, Mute Math's full-length album was my most spun of 2007. Actually, most of 2006's list was also tops of 2007. But, hey, I can't feature the exact same list every year, so we're just gonna skip The Elms and Mat Kearney. These are all great, but there's no doubt that Mute Math is still #1 in my book.

The Gospel Music Association held their 39th Annual Dove Awards Wednesday night at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn.

Chris Tomlin won for "Male vocalist of the year"