Murdered Love is the first new studio album form P.O.D. in four years and the long-awaited follow-up to When Angels & Serpents Dance.
The most startling aspect of Murdered Love lies in the diversity of one track to the next, as well as the band’s song writing, having penned every track on the album. The opener “Eyez” might be the band’s heaviest song yet, with a cameo by Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta. It contrasts sharply with “West Coast Rock Steady,” a playful hip-hop ode to their San Diego roots featuring Sen Dog of Cypress Hill. Meanwhile, “Panic & Run” is full-tilt punk, “Bad Boy” brings a funky swagger and their first single from the album, “Lost in Forever” ties it all together with an equal mix of aggressiveness and melody.
“The band is a fusion of all our musical passions,” says Curiel. “We can jump from punk to reggae to rap to metal. And funk -- people forget we had a little funk on our first few indie releases. So on a few songs here, we took it back. The whole process was really organic.”
Lyrically, the record finds P.O.D. at its most thoughtful and introspective as the band contemplates their lives and the world around them. On “Lost in Forever” Sandoval shows a mixture of hope and unease to questioning the cruelty of man, as the band also does in the brutal title track “Murdered Love”. “It’s about people who have died when all they brought was love” explains Curiel. The sparse and catchy track, “Beautiful,” contemplates the afterlife while the teeth-rattling album closer “I Am,” finds Sandoval opening with the vivid line: “I am the murderer, the pervert, sick to the core” and never lets up.
It’s the band at its darkest and most confrontational.
“I had been doing a lot of outreach to kids, talking at a lot of schools,” says the singer. “I see what they go through – suicide, rape, addiction –and that song is just about being vulnerable and honest. They’re wondering if they’re screw-ups, if they’re deserving of love and compassion. “.
The band recorded Murdered Love with Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson (Kelly Clarkson, My Chemical Romance, Daughtry), a long-time friend of the group and the man behind three of its biggest records. “He’s family,” says Sandoval, and then laughs. “He has the power to choose who he wants to work with, and I think he wanted to go back and make a real rock record.”
In the end, Murdered Love showcases a band at its most energetic and vital, nearly two decades after its debut. “This is the best record we’ve ever done,” says the singer Sandoval. “And that can only come from what we’ve put into this. We’re the same four down-to-earth guys we were when we were putting out indie records. There’s an honesty and an underdog vibe to everything we do that you can definitely hear in our music.”
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