Patty Griffin Downtown Church (Credential Recordings) I’ll start by damning this album with not-so-faint praise. Patty Griffin’s new one, Downtown Church, makes for uniformly pleasant listening. It’s made up mostly of gospel covers, with a couple originals and Big Mama Thornton’s...

David Bazan, Curse Your Branches David Bazan, Curse Your Branches (Barsuk, 2009) Even counting Sufjan Stevens, there is no artist currently making music whose faith (or the potential lackthereof) is given as much attention as the faith of David Bazan. Once one of the poster children for hip Christians...

I like Derek Webb a lot. He’s a truly creative guy, working in and around the fringes of Christian music, a genre that doesn’t exactly prize “the artist” often. I met him briefly when he was touring during his first round with Caedmon’s Call (a band Webb announced he will...