A Child Is Born, Sojourn (self-issued)

This is not so much a band as a Louisville, Ky.-based church emphasizing musical worship, but as they use rock forms to achieve their goals, and they've recorded Christmas music, we're going to look at them here. The album in the headline was released in 2011 and features a combination of popular carols and original songs. Performance-wise, this is very professional, following the styles of current pop-rock. "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" opens the disc in a strong upbeat rock style, "Go Tell It On the Mountain" takes a hard rock tack with only slight gospel overtones, as does "O Come O Come Emanuel," and "Silent Night" uses waltz time but plays up the rhythm and the crunchy guitars. The originals are heavily religious, of course, though performances like the semi-funky "O Glorious Hour," the mid-tempo "Knocking at Your Door" and the ballads "Joy Joy" and "This Is the Christ" are strong rock outings that will appeal to fans of contemporary rock bands. For completeness' sake, this is Sojourn's second Christmas-themed release; they put out Advent Songs in 2007, which in turn was, in their words, a revisitation of Songs For the Advent from 2003, again a combination of popular carols and church-written originals.