NOTE: This interview is also available on the inReview.net Podcast. If you would rather do so, you can listen to this interview (with a couple songs thrown in for good measure).

Patience is a virtue, so they say. On July 7, 2005, the news hit the Gotee Records website. “The new Mars ILL album, Pro*Pain, has been put on hold and will not be releasing on July 19, 2005. More details coming soon.” Time passed, and details were scarce. So we sat down with Dust, Deejay and Producer, and manCHILD, mic (aka Mars ILL) the month before the long-awaited release of Pro*Pain to talk about the album. We also talked about hip-hop music in the CCM realm, among other related issues.

The fifteen-year pedigree of this Nashville band is beyond question or dispute, and even the departure of founding member and contributing songwriter Derek Webb a couple years back, while not wildly received by the band's fanbase, really didn't threaten to derail the hit parade. Webb was replaced in due course by former Normals ringleader Andrew Osenga, and dang if Andrew doesn't know his way around a classy, reflective tune or two. The World Will Sing, a companion to 2001's In The Company of Angels: A Call To Worship, is simply vintage Caedmon's Call: polished production, great, honest vocal performances and a sincerity matched only by their instrumental talent. They're a seven-strong outfit in 2006, and with this second installment in the series they continue doing what they do best: collaborating on terrific interpretations of other peoples' songs, while continuing to let various individuals within their ranks write their own little treasures.

Another music festival July 16, 2005
[mood] jubilant

I went to a one-day music festival today with local and national bands. I was excited to hear a new band called Hyper Static Union. I saw them open for Third Day last month at an amusement park. I don’t think they have a national record deal. They are from Washington State, so they are not a local band. I think they have a connection with Third Day since they played together on a few dates this summer. I was quite happy to hear the music again! It has been a long time since I have heard something new in the CCM scene. I guess you would describe HSU as a funk-jazz-blues-rock band. They sure don’t sound like most of the new bands out there. It is refreshing!

It's been a few years now since Starfield made the break from Winnipeg, Manitoba down to Nashville. Canada's loss is the USA's gain, as Starfield have hit one out of the park with Beauty In The Broken, their sophomore album. Singer Tim Neufeld's voice and lyrical honesty are akin to those of Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman’s in their easy relating and simple sentiment, though Switchfoot surely aren't writing songs with titles like "Son of God" and "How Great Thou Art." The latter is a highlight here, a reworking of the classic hymn, featuring altered time signatures led by aggressive drumming and washes of electric guitar. This is an amped-up Starfield, sharper in every respect.

To be fair, the list of groups from whence the Chicago-based quartet The Fold sprang hardly reads like a who's who of rock royalty. But while names like Starstruck and Espin 12 are likely to draw blank stares from all but perhaps a handful of moms and ex-girlfriends of the former bands in question, the punk-pop foursome Showoff was at least marginally more successful in its attempts at hitting the proverbial big time. Formed in 1997, the band released only one album, a self-titled effort for Warner Bros. in 1999. During their tenure, though, vocalist Dan Castady and his cohorts managed to place their leadoff single, "Falling Star," into the lower reaches of the modern rock Top 40, while the follow-on single, "Spill," had the (arguably dubious) honor of being featured on the Digimon movie soundtrack.

If indeed God's pursuit of us can be termed a "Sacred Romance," asthe title of Brent Curtis and John Eldredge's book suggests, many of us who are dudes balk at the "romance" part. The notion that God seeks us like a smitten lover may captivate the hearts of our sisters, wives and girlfriends, but on the masculine breed the effect is simply lost.

I'd seen Hawk Nelson play a high school here in Ottawa in 2002 or thereabouts on the strength of their introductory independent EP, and remembered their name when the Tooth & Nail signing was announced. But it wasn't til my burgeoning radio career took off that I realized two things about them: a) they're better than I'd given them credit for and b) they're valuable additions to the canons of Canadian content, something not to scoff at in the Great White North. Their debut, Letters to the President, has since sold over a hundred thousand copies for the Nail, landing a pop-punk band from Nowheresville, Ontario in mainstream television, movies and Olympic commercials. A more meteoric rise to fame would be hard to find coming out of the Christian evangelighetto in the last five or ten years, and it's tough to say that Hawk don't deserve it, having hit the road hard since Letters emerged in 2004. Touring almost year-round took its toll on the band's original lineup, and new drummer Aaron "Skwid" Tosti and guitarist Jonathan Steingard perform capably, though not outstandingly - this is essentially simple music done well(and if Tosti's name rings a bell, it's because he cut his teeth drumming for the defunct Pax217 - a criminally underrated band in their time).

If you’ve read any of my reviews for this band, you’ll know that I always seem to study their work, because I’m always yelling, “Ooh, ooh, I’ll take DCB! Let me at it!” I sported a similar attitude with this recording... that is until Mr. Dan Ficker let me know that this remix record was bluegrass in style.

But I took a stab at the CD nonetheless. I like a fair bit of country, and I’ll listen to bluegrass if it’s ever in close proximity; how bad could this album be?

If the David Crowder Band had never made a remix album, I might be more lenient with this most recent experimentation. However, this is not the first remix to cross our plates, and I can’t help but imagine that B Collision was probably recorded to make more money for Sparrow Records.

Bryce Avary, the 22-year-old wonder who comprises an on-the-bubble act known as The Rocket Summer, stares just past you from the cover of his recent album, "Hello, good friend." His gaze is just to the left of the camera, one eye squinting and the other wide open but focused on something other than what's immediately in front of him.

He looks a shade below five feet tall in this picture, although you have no way of telling just how closely the man's stature matches his prodigious talent. His body is thin and wiry, his hair flying off in a number of different directions and his posture slouched, as if the weight of the Fender guitar hanging from his shoulder is just a bit more than he can bear.

Just as eleventyseven walked off the stage the first time I saw them live as the opening band for Superchic[k], my fellow concert security friend exclaimed, “Hmmm… These guys could be the next Green Day.” While I cannot predict the future, I can pronounce that this trio is the best new offering I have found in the pop-punk genre in CCM for at least two years. I do admit, however, that musically this new band is nothing that I have not heard before. Lyrically, on the other hand, eleventyseven is out to set a more positive tone.

But don’t be misled by the album title, and the Land of Fake Believe. The concepts expressed in the lyrics are not all fun and games. If you go beyond the song titles, often there is a much deeper message.

I was first intrigued by the mature sound of “More Than a Revolution” soon after it was released to radio earlier this year. Before long the catchy tune found me singing along. But the encouragement to go deeper than just talking about the latest fad - to bring about a major change - had me pondering what I could do to sincerely make a positive influence in the world rather than simply talking about it.