P.O.D. Testifies to the Truth

P.O.D. is a paradox. For starters, the San Diego quartet's music is equal parts metal, rap and ... reggae. The combination of seemingly contradictory components continues when you look at the themes that inform their lyrics: life with God and life on the street. Accordingly, P.O.D.'s songs about righteous living and urban grit have drawn a fierce following among Christian and mainstream fans.

Testify marks the band's fourth major-label studio album since 1999. Their sophomore release, 2001's Satellite, moved 3 million copies. But the band's last effort, Payable on Death (which is what P.O.D. stands for, by the way), didn't fare as well. To help them scale the charts again, P.O.D. enlisted the talents of Glen Ballard, who has produced pop heavyweights such as Michael Jackson, No Doubt, Aerosmith and Alanis Morissette. The result? Thirteen songs with as much attitude as any gangsta rapper. But instead of glorifying the "thug lifestyle," Testify confronts life with a potent, faith-infused outlook.

Testifying to Their Faith
Many artists tread lightly when it comes to religious content. Not P.O.D. The opening track, "Roots in Stereo," testifies to the band's spiritual convictions. They sing, "Jah [a common name for God in reggae that's also found in the King James Version of Psalms] love give me strength." Another song, "Strength of My Life," deliberately echoes King David's plaintive prayers: "Strength of my life, whom shall I dread?/When them evildoers approach to devour my flesh/Even if there would be an army against me/My heart would not fear."

P.O.D. applies that religious passion to the stuff of real life and how they relate to other people on several songs. "Goodbye for Now" depicts emotional fallout after a breakup. Struggling with disappointment, frontman Sonny Sandoval asks hard questions ("How do you know which way the wind blows? ... When will we sing a new song?"), voices confusion ("I walk around in the same haze"), yet clings to hope in something bigger than his present hurts. ("If joy really comes in the morning/Then I'm gonna sit back and wait until the next sunrise"). Another relationship-oriented song, "This Time," encourages fleeing sexual temptation.

Putting Up Your (Spiritual) Dukes
P.O.D. also sings a lot about faith in the context of intense spiritual warfare. At times, this focus on conflict bears superficial resemblance to gangsta rap. Upon closer inspection the battles the band sings about prove not to be back-alley gun fights. For example, it would be easy to hear this lyric from "Roots in Stereo" as typical hip-hop braggadocio: "In the streets, they hear your name, they no respect ya/You can run and hide, in the end, we gon' getcha." But just one line earlier, the band sings, "Babylon's burning to the ground." That reference is key to understanding what the band is really saying.

Throughout Scripture, Babylon symbolically represents the world's rejection of God. On this CD, that condemned city rears its ugly head again in the first lines of "Sounds Like War," which mirror Revelation 18:2: "What you know about that fallin', fallin'/Babylon, this so called Great, dead." Thus, knowing that P.O.D. is declaring war on the wicked values of the world changes the way we hear combat-oriented songs such as "Mark My Words," a song referencing Apocalypse in which the band sings, "Gonna bring the pain, you can see its goin' down/ ... Regulate, interrogate 'cause the enemy's loose/And he's out for the take."

My only concern with these "fist up" songs is that some fans may not realize where they come from. Some lyrics intended as spiritual metaphors could easily be taken too literally. For example, "Sounds Like War" screams, "Carve the name across your chest/In case the dog catcher want to know." In the song's overall context, "the name" is likely God's and "the dog catcher" the devil. The band is encouraging fans to identify with God, using a graphic metaphor to make their point. But in a culture where some use cutting to cope with life, a line like this one could be misinterpreted and abused as an endorsement.

And if some lyrics are hard to understand, others are obliquely tasteless ("Breaking the hymen on ears/That never heard of the line that I'm in") or just plain inscrutable. "Sounds Like War" repeats the phrase, "Dread at the controls/Label 'em John Doe."

Bold and Unapologetic
On Jan. 20, Sandoval told the audience of MTV's Total Request Live, "Fourteen years P.O.D. has been around, we been saying the same thing since we first started, that there is a God out there that loves you. We have that faith, and I believe that keeps us strong. ... We have been the same way for 14 years, no changing, no gimmicks."

"No gimmicks" sums up P.O.D.'s unapologetic proclamation of a message that clashes with pop culture's tolerant, anything-goes mindset. That boldness is worth applauding as long as fans understand that, if stripped of its spiritual overtones, the band's us-against-them attitude easily appeals to far less than righteous instincts. And that such a confrontational approach to keeping the faith applies to spiritual enemies, not physical ones.

In this sense, Testify's message echoes the words of the Apostle Paul, who reminded the Ephesian church that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground."

P.O.D. does stand its ground. But I don't think Paul would've understood some of their lyrics any better than I do: "I'm a Psycho, ill with the voco-loco/Heard a sick pedo noco noco by coasta logo." See what I mean?