P.O.D. Gets Back in the Spirit

On Eclectic 'Testify' There's Nothing Nu About the Lyrics

The music business has a gift for euphemism. "Collapsing from exhaustion," for instance, usually translates as "will soon be reciting his/her serenity prayer at a mind-blowingly expensive rehab clinic." Announcing that a band member has left because of "artistic differences" generally stands for "it was either can this jerk or go to jail for murder." And an album billed as a "return to form" always means "Help! Our last record tanked, and we really like our tour bus!"

"Testify," P.O.D.'s ninth album, is . . . a return to form. How long ago it must seem to the San Diego rap-rockers when their Top 40 single "Alive" assuaged some of the nation's hurt from 9/11 with a chorus so over the top in its optimism that it made survivor's guilt feel almost holy: "I feel so alive/For the very first time/I can't deny you."

But that song was about getting saved by God, not the New York Fire Department. And the album that bore it, "Satellite," arrived not just on Sept. 11, 2001, but also at the peak of commercial popularity for the fusion of hip-hop and hard rock called "nu metal." "Satellite" sold 3 million copies, and for a long time afterward P.O.D. was the best-selling rock band on Atlantic Records not named Led Zeppelin.

Then, after losing its original guitarist, Marcos Curiel, because of -- drum roll, please -- "artistic differences," P.O.D. followed with 2003's "Payable on Death" (the band's name when it toiled on the Christian metal circuit), which flopped.

For "Testify," P.O.D. brought in superproducer Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews, Aerosmith) and is hedging its bets by working the album aggressively in the Christian-rock market -- which Christian bands that have achieved success in the mainstream usually treat like a poor relation.

So it's perhaps a little odd that the first voice you hear on the album opener, "Roots in Stereo," belongs to the reggae singer Matisyahu, who happens to be a Hasidic Jew. But P.O.D. has always been open to disparate influences spiritually as well as musically -- singer Sonny Sandoval is just as likely to praise Jah as Jesus, and the band has always stood out from its rap-metal peers by incorporating reggae, funk and even jazz flourishes.

Ballard encourages such eclecticism on "Testify," adding synthesizers and sleigh bells to make the band's choruses soar ever higher. "Sounds Like War" even incorporates an R&B-style chorus. But Ballard doesn't seem to have been able to push the band to likewise expand its lyrical scope. Sandoval can be terrific when it comes to noting the spiritual deficiencies of his peers, as on "Say Hello," but when it comes to his own, he far too often settles for muzzy cliches ("My soul still flies with broken wings").

Worse, "Goodbye for Now" features a rapped verse that's nearly identical to the one on P.O.D.'s 2002 hit "Youth of the Nation," with a chorus that makes it all too easy for the band's detractors: "When will we sing a new song?" Sandoval wonders.

Until he answers that question convincingly, P.O.D. may have to prepare for its audience, in music-biz terms, to grow ever "more selective."