Awake (Deluxe Edition)

Skillet’s eighth album finds the band continuing down the same Christian rock road they traveled for 2006’s Comatose—and sounds just as intense. The righteous rage of “Hero” and “Monster” is balanced by love-gone-wrong tracks “It's Not Me It's You” and “Should’ve When You Could’ve,” which artfully cut through the tension. Then there are the spiritually charged ballads: “Awake and Alive,” with its dramatic, staccato strings and “Don’t Wake Me,” which features John Cooper’s vocals at their barest and most affecting.