There may now finally be a definite response for the definition of the term Underground Music.  When is Underground Music truly underground?  When it is performed in living rooms across the world.  Who knows, some of those living rooms might have literally been underground as well.  Regardless, experimental indie rapper Listener, also known as Arkansas’ Dan Smith, has been personally tickling the ears of residents both domestically and internationally in his Tour of Homes since the latter half of 2005.

Smith is kind of like a modern day Jack Kerouac or Bob Kaufman.  When hearing some of his live performances, there is a feeling, true or not, that it is some sort of free flowing, spontaneous poetry backed by a sparse, hip hop accompaniment.  This is certainly not the type of rap that is heard on the radio; Smith doesn’t want it to be.  Instead he chooses to be an innovator, to take rap as a genre in a new direction.  It’s an ambitious goal and not necessarily one that is out of his reach.  Smith invokes a variety of different influences including Bill Mallonee, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck D, and David Bazan.  While all provide accurate comparisons from a lyrical approach, Smith’s musical influences are much more unique.   Those familiar with the Deepspace5 collective (for whom Smith is a regular contributor) or other Deepspace5 members such as Mars ILL or ILL Harmonics might “get” Smith’s musical perspective much quicker than others.

Casting Crowns has made quite an impression since their debut album released in 2003. “Who Am I?” quickly propelled the band into the CCM arena, and subsequent hits such as “Lifesong” and “Praise You in This Storm” further solidified their status as favorites in the Christian pop/rock realm. The fact they sound an awful lot like MercyMe, despite being a point of confusion for some listeners, hasn’t hurt either.

Now they have returned with The Altar and the Door, and a lot of the characteristics that have made them popular are still in tact. Mark Hall’s passionate vocals still soar to the heavens and dip back down to the earth when the need arises, and the music is still epic with the guitars, drums and orchestrations combining to create powerful musical swells that listeners simply cannot resist.

Who’s Minus the Bear, you ask? It is a question with many answers… I could initially tell you they are among the plethora of indie rock bands springing up in the Pacific Northwest. Secondly, I could mention they are far from being your typical indie Seattle band. This is not your rainy-day mellow fare. This is not pretentiously weird and it’s also not copy-cattishly dance infused. Yet the music that Minus the Bear makes has elements of those things that make indie rock so special, and then some. Smooth yet driven, quirky yet not off the wall.

Planet of Ice starts out with the relaxed “Burying Luck,” a track with obvious surf-rock influences. Next is “Ice Monster,” which is quite a bit more serious than its title would imply, continuing the beach-bum trend with an incredibly catchy-yet-simple chorus. “Knights” incorporates more complicated (and wonderfully spacey in a Pink Floyd kind of way, I might add) riffs and is easily one of the album’s best tracks. The band’s guitarists have a great ability to compose incredible riffs yet not be obnoxious in an 80s sort of way.

Taking a different approach to greatest hits projects, Third Day has instead opted to release two albums, this one that covers the band's work from '96 to 2000 and Volume Two, which will highlight the hits from 2000 to the present. Both collections also include a bonus DVD, the first which contains a look at some of the band's music videos, GMA Award (Dove) show performances, and some very rare bootleg footage featuring the early days of the band. This footage alone is gold for die-hard fans as they see the young Mac Powell and Mark Lee in the foundational days of what is now one of Christian music's most influential bands.