This 18-track hymns/worship album is available for free for 30 days as a “free gift”. Cardiphonia actually has a few albums that are worth checking out, most of which are free.

Almost four years ago Phil Wickham blessed the Christian community with a free worship album called Singalong. Basically, it was a live recording of a worship sessions with just Phil and his acoustic. For me, that album became an anthem and one that I returned to often to just, well, sing along. This week he’s done it again. Singalong 2 is another great album with just an acoustic and voices, along with some great original songs and hymns. The album is 100% free and he has partnered with Compassion to help children in need in countries around the world. I definitely recommend getting this free album. You will be blessed as I have been.

AmazonMP3 has a new batch of $5 albums up for the month of May. Here’s our top 5 picks for this month!

The Fray - Scars & Stories

Matt Redman - 10,000 Reasons

Deas Vail - Self-Titled

Rosie Thomas - With Love

My Morning Jacket - Circuital

This album is incredible. I have no words. It’s a free download. Download it and then buy a copy for a friend.

Phil Wickham’s newest album Response is on sale on iTunes through Easter for $7.99 (sale ends 4/10). I’m a fan of Phil’s music and have always been blessed by his writing.

UPDATE: This album is featured on AmazonMP3 for the entire month of April for $5. That’s $3 cheaper for the same tunes. Buy the album from Amazon here.

(Source: twitter.com)

With the internet, nothing dies. That’s bad if you’ve got a terrible junior high photo still up on your Geocities page, or really good if you’re a Christian band trying to get back in to the mainstream spotlight.

In the past few months Christian bands from the 90s have been popping up all over Kickstarter to restart their music making. Here’s a few notable ones (apparently ska is about to sweep Christian music…again):

Five Iron Frenzy

Five Iron’s new song is actually pretty good. Oh, and they were already funded for a new album. They raised over $200,000. Ridiculous.

The Supertones

Not gonna lie guys… I think Five Iron might be getting my money.

Big Tent Revival

This one is tough. BTR had a few good songs (not to mention 5 Grammy nods). But then again, Grammy nods in the 90s weren’t too hard for Christian bands in the mainstream. We’ll see what comes of this.

The David Crowder*Band recently posted a statement on their website stating that their next tour, which they’re calling “The 7 Tour,” will be their last. The band is also currently working on recording their sixth (and final) full-length studio album.

The band gives many reasons for their decision (such as marriages and “new humans” arriving). But the most prominent reason given is that since the band was signed in 2000, six albums was all the band ever discussed. The band was originally signed for a three album deal, but there were always plans for six. “We didn’t want to be presumptuous, presuming there would be more than those first three albums, but we hoped. And so we began discussions about building a 6 album set, the second three, if we were ever to have the great privilege of recording them, would be loosely associated with the first three.”

The band gives a further explanation of their reasoning later in the statement:

“At the first of this year we began discussing what was next. For a long while, we have had a good idea what we were going to do for album number 6; we were going to record a Mass…But we also began conversations about what was to follow this sixth album. Some of us discussed maybe going back to school. Some of us talked about how great it might feel to be home with family more. Some mentioned maybe writing for a living, or at least getting to give more attention to it. Some talked about more music to be made and who they might enjoy making it with and how great it would be to have more diverse options open to them and the excitement they felt when thinking about those options (as in, if this was to be the period at the end of a sentence, they couldn’t wait to read the next paragraph!) And, out of these discussions, the decision was reached that this sixth album would be our last.”

To follow the analogy of the statement above, with the placing of the period on the sentence of the David Crowder*Band, a good thing is coming to an end, but I do see great things coming from the members in the future. And I can’t wait!

“It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” – Irish Proverb

Jars of Clay’s new album, The Shelter (to be release on 10/5/10), is steeped in the idea of community. “The record is based off of these old Irish words that say, ‘It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.’ It is really a record about community and the way we get to be Jesus to each other,” says Dan Haseltine (lead singer for Jars of Clay). Not only is The Shelter an album about community, it is an album created by community. Fifteen different artists participated in the creation of The Shelter, such as Mac Powell, Brandon Heath, Leigh Nash, Burlap to Cashmere, Derek Webb, TobyMac, David Crowder, as well as others.

Listen to The Shelter now at Relevant Magazine: The Drop.

Derek Webb and wife, Sandra McCraken are both now offering their latest albums free through a new service called NoiseTrade. Listeners can choose to either tell three friends or pay whatever dollar amount they wish in order to receive a link to download the albums. The album available for Derek Webb is his latest, The Ringing Bell and Sandra McCraken is offering her album Gravity/Love through this special offer.

If any of you missed out on the Canadian Christian band Starfield with their last album, Beauty in the Broken, I feel sorry for you. But now that means that you have just that much more music to listen to in the next coming months! Amazing music and I’m very much more excited to tell you that they are coming out with a new record next week on March 25. Go here to check out some of the new tunes! Oh and if you didn’t get the hint, go pick up their other albums too, now.