When Angels and Serpents Dance (CD - 2008)

Additional personnel: The Marley Sisters, Mike Muir, Page Hamilton.

P.O.D. were perhaps unfairly lumped in with the "rap-rock" pack prevalent on the radio and MTV at the dawn of the millennium. While the group certainly didn't avoid the occasional hip-hop or funk influence, their sound tended to hew closer to the kind of spiritually infused, reggae-tinge hardcore of Bad Brains. WHEN ANGELS AND SERPENTS DANCE finds the Christian warriors reunited with their founding guitarist and still standing when many of their multi-platinum contemporaries have fallen away. The band's melodic side continues to encroach on the heaviness, most notably on the power ballad "This Ain't No Ordinary Love Song," the delicate "Roman Empire," and the lilting, Rastafarian "I'll Be Ready." But they still drop the hammer when necessary. "God Forbid" slams home with stuttering drums and guitar and singer Sonny Sandoval's most aggressive vocals on the record, and "Condescending" is classic, driving metallic haze. minimize