One of Christian Pop's most recognizable voices, Jeremy Camp, has been on a roll over the past decade, producing five studio albums since 2013. After his success with The Story's Not Over in 2019, Camp is back with a thirteen-song outing, titled When You Speak. However, quantity is not always ideal, especially when it takes away from quality. Unfortunately, this is the case with Jeremy's latest release, as it follows a familiar formula from start to finish...

Chris Renzema has been on a steady rise since his indie acoustic-based worship album, I'll Be the Branches, garnered him critical praise and over 36 million streams on the strength of the song "How To Be Yours." Signing to Centricity and making his label debut with Let the Ground Rest two years later in 2020, he continued his momentum forward with over 800,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, signifying no sophomore slump. Clearly, Renzema’s devotional pop has struck a chord, and he appears to be here to stay. This is a positive thing as he has been one of the better up-and-coming lyricists in CCM with an increasingly diverse musical palate...

Continuing the band's prolific output (averaging one new 5-song EP every year since signing to Solid State Records back in 2017), Earth Groans are back to continue their claim on the classic 00's metalcore sound with The Body. Following in the footsteps of Solid State veterans like Oh, Sleeper and Norma Jean, Earth Groans play a familiar style of Christian metal that is enhanced by a poetic pen, a Christ-centered focus, and a lyrical depth that is rare to find in the genre -- not to mention a frontman (Jeremy Schaeffer) who can roar with the best of them.

Unfortunately, The Body comes after the departure of half of the band's members last year, with guitarist Zachariah Mayfield and bassist Kaden Burton both citing the types of circumstances you'd expect...

The creative brainchild of Joshua Aubrey Jackson, Make Sure is the kind of music best described as intimate, warm, and arresting. After ten years of being independently released under various monikers, like Fiery Crash and Summerrooms, multi-instrumentalist Jackson signed with Tooth & Nail Records for his latest album, Ninjutsu. It's low-key indie-pop at its finest, and a much-anticipated album since this reviewer first heard lead single “The Day That I Moved Out.” This track about letting go of control struck a sadly poetic nostalgic nerve, and I was eager for more.

That's the funny thing about first impressions and expectations, often they don't quite match up. In this case, that's certainly true, though only to a slight degree. The two singles that would follow ("Girl Drummer" and "Japanese Bonus Track") before its September 3rd...