Is it just me, or are there a lot of popular rock bands out there who would be better off without their lead singers? Have you ever made such an observation about a band? "Hey, these guys are pretty tight, but what's up with this dude's voice, and what the heck is he rambling about?" Since lead singers are often their bands' chief songwriters, it's amazing how much of an impact one guy out of four or five can have on the quality of his band's music. Bands like The Killers, Linkin Park, and Pillar are good examples of this phenomenon - take the music by itself, and it's generally pretty enjoyable. Then throw in a guy who either sings off-key or just comes across as a total dimwit due to his limited grasp of good songwriting, and the whole thing goes to hell. (Keep in mind that these are all bands I've previously given positive reviews too, who have gone downhill due to precisely this problem.) Well, I hate to say it, but I'm starting to think that P.O.D. might be one of those bands.

Somehow I don't think a lot of folks expected P.O.D. to survive this long to begin with. The band got huge right when rap/rock or "nu-metal" was the trendy sound du jour, at roughly the turn of the century, and they had some solid hits and seemed to be riding high after 2001's Satellite, but their popularity diminished considerably when 2003's Payable on Death flopped, and 2006's Testify, which was a decent attempt at a comeback even if it still got lost in Satellite's shadow, was met with similar indifference. The brief war of words that ensued when former guitarist Marcos Curiel left and/or was kicked out of the band didn't help matters - nor did their record deal with Atlantic coming to an end when Testify failed to sell like hotcakes. A lot of bands would give up at that point, especially with their chosen genre being past its prime. But the part of me who just likes whatever he likes, even if it hasn't been trendy for five or ten years now, really admired the band for soldiering on. So I was actually looking forward to their 2008 release, When Angels and Serpents Dance, recorded with Curiel back in the fold after the rather coincidental departure of guitarist Jason Truby that conveniently occurred right around the time Curiel and the rest of the band apparently decided to bury the hatchet. Truby was good in his own way, but there was a certain heaviness to P.O.D.'s sound that seemed 10 times more convincing with Curiel on board - even on the highly poppy choruses of Satellite. So this new disc promised to be a return to greatness - a synthesis of their more mainstream material with the sound of their early days (which was much too heavy and chaotic for my liking, but I figured it might behoove the band to fuse the two for the sake of not being constantly labeled "sellouts"). I doubted that it would make the band huge again, and none of that really affects whether I like a band's music anyway, but with a partnership between mainstream heavyweight Columbia and Christian label INO, the record seemed perfectly poised to reach both sides of the band's audience and create quite a buzz among those who still enjoyed the genre.

So I checked it out. And that's when it occurred to me that Sonny Sandoval is kind of this band's Achilles heel. Don't get me wrong - he's not a bad vocalist. His voice can turn from sarcastic to confrontational to sensitive and back to downright anguished whenever he needs it to, and as far as rock rappers go, he's good at it when the material supports that type of delivery (not all of P.O.D.'s songs do, and they've been wise to reinvent themselves as more of a "melodically heavy" type of rock band, but it makes the rap-oriented numbers stand out a bit more, and their one attempt to completely abandon that style in 2003 was a disaster). The problem with Sonny is that he seems to have a poor grasp on the power of the English language. I don't mean to say that the guy isn't fluent in conversational English or anything - I just think he lacks breadth as a songwriter, or perhaps that he follows the cues of his musical heroes without understanding why they phrase certain things the way they do. So you'll get things like big, booming songs of praise uncomfortably sprinkled with ghetto-ized hip-hop braggadocio, or songs that try their darndest to be insightful and encouraging, but that just come across as pithy cliches that don't mean anything. He can be hard-hitting when he wants to - as a few of this album's more descriptive tracks illustrate - and I really admire his willingness to put his heart on his sleeve and not put forth a fake, indestructible, "gangsta" sort of persona. (Well, not usually anyway.) But wanting to express what's honestly on your heart doesn't easily translate to expressing it well. And while I realize we don't expect the most eloquent songwriting from rap/rock outfits like P.O.D., I still have this longing to sit down and listen to a full album of theirs and enjoy the mix of slamming riffs and laid-back grooves without being punched in the gut by so much lyrical awkwardness.

I can't complain about the rest of the band. They prove to be pretty solid - and on this album, more musically prolific than ever before - with pretty much every song and style that gets thrown at them. Traa Daniels and Wuv Bernardino provide a good dose of soulfulness as they hold down the band's rhythm section, while Marcos Curiel, who might be capable of the expected one-note chug-a-chug metal riffs, can also inject a bit of sunny reggae flair, or a classy jazz/Latin sort of flavor, if the song calls for it. What's awesome about When Angels and Serpents Dance is that the songs often do call for a musical change-up - there are some typical P.O.D. headbangers, but the overall balance might make this P.O.D.'s mellowest performance yet. What's a bit weird about that is that the heavy numbers that still remain are actually heavier than most of the band's output since The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, which makes the record incredibly disjointed. None of this would bother me all that much if the lyrics were consistently good - I can go along for the ride to almost anywhere that a band wants to go when they've got a compelling message attached. Bungle the effectiveness of that message, though, and the aural whiplash becomes wearisome. There are several songs here that I'm not ashamed to admit I like, but frustratingly, I have trouble coming up with one that I absolutely love enough to say, "You absolutely must hear this". For all of their flaws, Testify had the incredible "Roots in Stereo", Payable on Death had the hard-hitting "Asthma" and the gorgeous instrumental "Eternal", and Satellite was largely front-loaded with solid highlights. So we're left with a mix of reasonably above-average songs, a few that try but don't quite stand out, and a few stinkers. The net balance is an average record.

Oh, and you know how P.O.D. always tries to liven up their records with a few guest appearances by musicians that they personally admire, ranging from reggae to punk to metal? They tried that again here, and none of the hyped guest appearances really amount to much, sad to say. So that's another minus point on a record that, if they had tried harder, could have been worth a respectable four stars. Let's face it - not every musician you look up to is necessarily a good fit for a guest spot on your record.

Addicted
Intoxicated, viral poison
Girl, fill me up with nothing in myself but mutilation
You'd let me blow my brains, go insane
Throw it in my face and watch me chase it...
This one's a good start - an excellent introduction to P.O.D.'s new, less glossy approach. It's every bit as hard-hitting and single-worthy as the songs that blasted their previous records to life, but there's something "rawer" here - the groove feels more stripped down and basic despite the heavy riffing and Sonny's angst-laden verses. A lot of rap/rock bands can bore you with the one-note-riff, pseudo-funk thing, but P.O.D. gets it right here, as Marcos uses dissonant, scratchy sounds to give the song its own warped sense of color where one might normally expect a more melodic approach. It's an angry song, coming from the perspective of an addict who knows he's gonna keep crawling back to the very thing that puts him on the verge of suicide. Sonny lashes out at the "liar" who got him hooked by promising a good feeling, an escape from pain. There's no silver lining here - just an attempt to capture the frustrated thoughts of someone stuck in the cycle, rather than moralizing about it from the outside looking in.

Shine with Me
And the Heavens will open up
With a vision inside Jah love
The earth, and the moon, and the sun will align
With a voice from the sky above, one love...
Going from angry to happy so quickly doesn't work well for P.O.D., and this song sort of sets us up for the whiplash that will occur throughout the album. There's still a chunky heaviness to the syncopated riffing here - Marcos, Wuv and Traa are all holding up their end of the bargain with a fairly slick groove. But Sonny botches it with his oversimplified words of encouragement as he invites someone to experience "Jah love". The chorus actually has the audacity to phrase it as such: "So come on and shine with me, like the beautiful star you are." I'm fine with P.O.D. being sentimental - I loved "Thinking About Forever", after all - but these words should never appear on a P.O.D. album. It's not inspiring; it's embarrassing. Even worse is the second verse, half of which is taken up by explaining that "My love is like, la la la la la la la." You know, I remember a Five Iron Frenzy song where they filled part of a verse with "la la"s just as a joke, because it was about not having enough time to finish writing their songs. And the "la la"s that were just there for laughs lasted for less time than these do. And the bridge, which suddenly gets all heavy and finds Sonny screaming, "Shine on! Shine on!" as if he were Animal from the Muppets? Yeah, that's not helping. This song is utterly skippable dreck - so of course they had to go and make it a follow-up single. DOH.

Condescending
So tell me once again how easy it would be
If we'd listen to you, and just paid attention
So what's the point in you showing us your way
If we don't even care to be around you or even know you?
And here's the song that makes us all feel a little guilty for giving into the temptation to criticize P.O.D. for being "too worldly". Well, maybe not all of us. But I know I've dabbled. And then I've come around from the other side and criticized them for writing lyrics that are just as cheesy as the CCM bands that some of P.O.D.'s members have taken potshots at. Suffice to say, they get it from both sides - lots of people who think they know best trying to tell 'em what to do. So they wrote a frustrated song about it - which isn't as heavy an in-your-face as you might expect for a song directed towards a judgmental person who is never pleased. It has more of a dejected, grumbling sense of resignation to it - less harsh than "Anything Right", but with a bit more kick than "Let You Down". I really enjoy the slinky rhythm of the song, the way it changes from 6/8 to 4/4 and back again, with the vocals overlapping and whatnot. It's probably my favorite track on the album - sure, it's no "Youth of the Nation", but it's pretty solid nonetheless.

It Can't Rain Everyday
A young lady's been lost for awhile
But that's OK, now she's having a child
She finally got what she wants, she's got someone who loves her
But this morning she woke up in pain
Nobody had to tell her because she knew right away
So she started to cry because she won't be a mother....
I'm really impressed with Marcos Curiel's skills here - he's almost delving into the blues with his slow, cloudy, guitar intro, played as a lament that's entirely free of percussion or any other intervening instrument. From there, the song picks up and establishes a structure that is actually quite similar to "Youth of the Nation", though a bit more hopeful and less harrowing. Sonny's trying to identify with some hurting people here - a man who gets laid off from his job, a woman who suffers a miscarriage. Basically, it's a song devoted to down-and-out individuals who feel like there's no hope left. I'm identifying with Sonny's compassion until he hits us with the moral of the story, which will come as a surprise to nobody who read the title of the song, because yeah, he really expects the fact that “It can't rain everyday" to make us feel better. How would you feel if you'd just had a living, breathing child die inside your womb, and someone basically said to you, "Hey, cheer up, you'll eventually have a day or two that doesn't suck"? I think I'd want to deck that person. And part of me wants to deck Sonny for very nearly ruining a spectacular performance by his bandmates - it's totally outside of P.O.D.'s genre box, because it's not "heavy" in any sense of the word, but there's so much soulfulness in Marcos' lead guitar that I have to wonder whether lyrics were even necessary here.

Kaliforn-Eye-A
I go where I wanna go
I keep the thang on the down-low
I'm from the south side of Diego till the day that I die
Better put it on my tombstone...
If you couldn't tell from the painful, wannabe-gangsta spelling of P.O.D.'s home state that serves as this song's title (and yes, they pronounce it that way in the song), this is the first example of a song that P.O.D. does a very thorough job of flushing down the crapper. It almost sounds like they want to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers with the raw but funk-inspired riffing, and that ain't a bad thing in and of itself, but there's only so much mental filtering of the lyrics that I can do (my reserves were already taxed by tracks 2 and 4). It's basically another "Where ma homies at?" bragging session about how the band's home state is the best (and hey, I live here too, so it's not like I disagree with the song's premise), which manages to make "Boom" sounds like an example of Pulitzer-worthy prose. Mike Muir, the first of P.O.D.'s musical heroes to show up on this album (he's the brains behind the skate punk band Suicidal Tendencies), essentially serves as a "hard rock hype man" throughout the song, offering obnoxious, un-witty commentary that essentially reiterates everything Sonny just said. I could handle this if the song didn't feel so schizophrenic - the chorus is way too smooth and phoned in to match the jerky verses, and then, out of nowhere, they go full-speed, old-school punk for the bridge (which is actually kind of cool, but I'm long past the point of caring about what's being said at this point). I'll admit to being amused by Muir's outburst of, "I don't give a DAMN who you know!", but it's only because I derive some sort of perverse pleasure from imagining the conservative CCM fans who will stumble across this one and be shocked by a Christian band's use of the word "damn" outside of the context of eternal perdition.

I'll Be Ready
I'm in the fire out here strugglin'
Rollin' down the Sunset Strip
Lord, it's getting hard, but I'm trying
So please forgive me, but I'm hustlin' on...
Marcos lays on the electric soul pretty thick during this laid-back reggae tune which, unfortunately, seems to be another anthem about "hustling". ("On the Grind" being a previous example.) I hate to break it to you guys, but we already realize that it's hard out there for a pimp, and seriously, you're gonna play the Christian angle and then have the audacity to basically say, "I know what I'm about to do is bad, so God, forgive me for it ahead of time?" I'm not judging the band personally for this; I'm just saying it makes the lyrics rather embarrassing to listen to. Even more so when they equate the Sunset Strip with "Babylon", which is a common metaphor for evil, oppressive forces found in both Judeo-Christian and Rastafarian beliefs. Great. So we've basically got a slightly more culturally hip version of a Christian band saying Hollywood is the Devil, and then playing off one's participation in whatever this "hustling” is as if one had no other choice. Give me a break. It's really too bad about the lyrics, because the combination of the sizzling guitar, the swaying, feel-good rhythm, and the female backup vocals provided by The Marley Sisters is a pretty sweet one. Actually, realizing who does the backup vocals just makes the song seem even sillier to me. I mean, you go to all the trouble of recruiting the daughters of Bob Marley himself, and all you let them sing is the single word "I, I, I" over and over? (Well, there's a little bit of "yo, yo, yo" from the ladies during the bridge. Apparently Sonny taught them how to sing "I" in Spanish.) Utterly ridiculous. Just to add to the hilarity, Sonny concludes a song which is supposed to sound like an earnest prayer to God by blurting out the words, "Oh, gosh." Um, you're talking honestly to the Almighty here, not taking His name in vain, so I'm not sure why you felt the sudden need to bowdlerize.

End of the World
False prophets claim to be the answer
Misleading us and claiming your name
You can see that all the people, they are dying
Hear the rumors of war, so blow us all away…
P.O.D. makes a decent lyrical comeback by drumming up a bit of apocalyptic drama here - this one's a good blend of their newer, more radio-friendly approach (which contributes a melodic chorus, a subtle string section, and a 6/8 rhythm) and their older, more scream-heavy tendencies (which contributes, well, a lot of screaming). It's a tortured song that ponders war and corruption and oppression and so forth and concludes that this must be the beginning of the end. Many evangelical Christians have asked this same question at every shocking turn of events that makes national news (some even looking forward with glee to the possibility of Armageddon being upon us), but Sonny's approach to the subject is decidedly more ominous - "Are we getting what we deserve?" Despite being an angry song, it gives us a hint of pacifism that the band will follow up on later in the album.

This Ain't No Ordinary Love Song
The reasoning escapes my soul that leads to understanding
Loving you to death is stopping someone else from living too
Now it's killing you...
This would be the one song that I always find myself overlooking. I'm not entirely sure why. It might be because the rhythm and overall attitude match "End of the World" pretty closely, but are just a little more subdued, or it might be because I find the phrasing and the very idea that this is a "love song" at all to be a bit ambiguous, and I tune out what seems to not give me enough clues to figure out. You can't really say something's not an ordinary love song if it isn't a love song at all - and this one's pretty packed with neurosis, rejection, and paranoia. Like "Anything Right" or "Let You Down" or "Condescending" before it, it's probably an attempt to see things from a point of view of a dejected youth who wonders if his life is even worth living due to the rotten treatment he's gotten from others. I can appreciate the stab at showing some sympathy. I just don't think the attempt at being ironic by calling it a "love song" really gets across whatever point they're trying to make.

God Forbid
We have cause to be uneasy
The evil-utionary process has begun in a world that hates you
These secrets revealed belong to us
And when worst comes to worst, my peoples come first...
Talk about disjointed. This one starts with a lengthy, spaced-out interlude of keyboards and drum programming, which suddenly careens headlong into a no-holds-barred, fiery outburst of thrash metal. Good stuff for headbanging, and it's a solid performance, technically speaking, with Wuv's slamming drums and Sonny's short, punctuated outbursts engaged in a machine-gun shootout with one another. But the lyrics are mostly just a rant about the fear of going insane. I'm not sure what's really accomplished by pointing this out, but hey, at least the music fits the lyrics (unlike, say, "Shine with Me"). Page Hamilton, lead vocalist of Helmet, gets a turn at the mic here, his vocals sounding appropriately ragged and stressed out. It's not a terribly appealing sound. I can respect P.O.D.'s willingness to show that they haven't gone soft and can still thrash about just like the pre-Southtown days, but you know, I could never get into their old stuff either.

Roman Empire
This instrumental track sounds like Marcos Curiel listened to the Jason Truby/Phil Keaggy collaboration "Eternal", from one of the two records P.O.D. recorded during his absence, and said, "Oh, yeah? Well, watch this?" And he brings out a hefty dose of dramatic Latin flavor for a delicious solo piece that is later joined by the rest of the band, turning into a scorching, almost jazzy electric guitar jam that might just make Santana take notice. (Carlos, you already did a song with P.O.D. Please, for the love of God, don't attempt it again.) While I still prefer "Eternal" and Marcos' acoustic work in "Thinking About Forever", this is still pretty awesome. It's really too bad that some idiot decided to distract us from the instrumental goodness during the acoustic solo portion of the song by whispering, "Empirio Romano" over and over again, which sounds royally stupid. It makes me expect Chris Kattan to show up and do his really bad Antonio Banderas expression while slowly unbuttoning his shirt as his band members plead, "Nooooooo! Too sexy!!!"

When Angels and Serpents Dance
Righteous moving trusts
Deceitful, the creature is crawling
The guardian's flying, the dance is breathing
Who's leading?
I think there might be too many mid-tempo tracks on this record that are played in 6/8 time. I actually find that 6/8 or 3/4 usually helps me to remember songs more easily, since 4/4 is more common (especially for rap-inflected rock bands), but overusing it tends to dilute that memorable quality. This song sounds like a watered-down "Will You" to me, and it's not good when your album's title track reminds people of an older, better song. The guitar riffs are just too similar, and this one doesn't have nearly as dynamic of a chorus - its melody feels flat. The lyrics, by comparison, are fairly strong here - it's a halfway poetic attempt to describe an uneasy standoff between good and evil, and it presents the listener with the probing question, "Who's leading you?" I like this, because it's P.O.D.'s creative way of paraphrasing the idea from the Bible that no man can serve two masters. In some ways, this song is the key to understand the musical and lyrical whiplash that takes place throughout the album. The angel shows up and P.O.D. indulges their optimistic side - with perhaps cheesy results, but they let the good just be good and don't feel the need to always make it sound edgy. The serpent shows up and is simply seen for what it is - evil happens without rhyme or reason or apology, and that's expressed in several of this album's tracks, which express despair, or addiction, or being trapped in a pattern of sin, without expressing a glimmer of hope. The dance between the two provides the needed context. So while this song isn't that great on its own, it does make me want to go back and evaluate certain songs less harshly... at least, until I realize that unflinching expressions of good things and evil things, it's just the consequence of poorly chosen lyrics.

Tell Me Why
A day with no glory, a heart filled with fear
Still repeating his-story to make ourselves clear
A voice is unheard when it shouts from the hills
Your king in his castle never died on these fields...
You've gotta be kidding me with this one. I'm fine with P.O.D. expressing their sensitive side, and I'm totally OK with them being bold enough to express a clear anti-war statement while knowing that it might get them shunned by the largely conservative, evangelical Christian segment of their audience who still thinks "stay the course" is good advice for Iraq. (Yes, I did say "Largely". There are exceptions. I am one of them.) But to take all of the instrumental skill in the band and reduce it to the simple strumming of an acoustic guitar, and embellish it with strings and bells? It doesn't work. It sounds pretty, but it doesn't do so in a way that feels true to P.O.D.'s style. Contrast this with "It Can't Rain Everyday", which also plays the "sensitive guy" card both lyrically and musically, but still shows that this band has chops. You can soften up without wimping out on the music. There's no excuse for trying to sound like something you're not - in this case, trying to be an "overproduced coffeehouse" sort of band.

Rise Against
What is it you're showing to all the people looking on?
Leaving us with nothing, just a voice with no sound
What's holding you down?
Now this is much better, as protest songs go. It brings back a little bit of the band's infatuation with reggae, a little bit of the rhythmic restlessness seen in a few other tracks (once again we've got a 4/4 verse and a 6/8 chorus), and a whole lot of thrilling electric guitar heroism. How is it that Marcos is consistently at his best on this record when he drops all pretense of trying to play anything heavy? (Not that he isn't good at the heavy stuff, but this guy's genre dabbling has really left an impression upon me.) This song offers some thematic closure to the album, revisiting the tried-and-true reggae theme of standing up for yourself and fighting the oppressor, even if resistance means death. Judging from context, this actually seems to mean speaking out against violence and wars, rather than starting them. It's a battle cry against complacency. One could apply it to the album's spiritual theme and take it to mean that you've got to face all of the scary, even potentially deadly problems presented amidst the other songs in warts-and-all fashion, and simply know that the truth will prevail and the war will be won even if the individual battles are painful and messy. While I have a tough time giving P.O.D. a lot of credit for the phrasing of their individual songs, I'm at least coming to realize that their latest disc holds together a lot better on a thematic level than I had previously acknowledged.

So the sum total of P.O.D.'s efforts here seems to shake out like this: Points for solid, versatile musicianship, plus points for exploring two halves of a theme well, minus points for awkward and occasionally cheesy lyrics (and obnoxious posturing), minus points for the various musical styles on the album not really playing well with one another, and you get a slightly-above-average album with lofty intentions. It's a grey area. And you can glean a lot of light from the grey if you're willing to do the work - just be aware of the dark, looming obstacles that you're going to have to learn to negotiate around.

ALBUM WORTH:
Addicted $1.50
Shine with Me $0
Condescending $1.50
It Can't Rain Everyday $1
Kaliforn-Eye-A $0
I'll Be Ready $1
End of the World $1
This Ain't No Ordinary Love Song $.50
God Forbid $.50
Roman Empire $1
When Angels and Serpents Dance $1
Tell Me Why $.50
Rise Against $1.50
TOTAL: $11

Band Members:
Sonny Sandoval: Lead vocals
Marcos Curiel: Electric and acoustic guitars
Wuv Bernardo: Drums, rhythm guitar
Traa Daniels: Electric and acoustic bass

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving