A singer from a band I was in burnt me this CD when it came out and I was surprised to find out that “Satellite” is the fourth album by P.O.D, released on September 11, 2001.

P.O.D. (short for Payable On Death) are Sonny Sandoval on lead vocals, Marcos Curiel on guitars, Traa Daniels on bass and Wuv Bernardo on drums.

Howard Benson is producing and Benson was sort of the Werman/Olsen of the late 90’s and 2000’s to me. Chris Lord-Alge is mixing and Randy Staub is engineering. If you owned albums in the late 80’s you would have seen these names on production credits.

Set It Off

The tone of the guitar is massive. I wanted to mimic it back then, so I tried different pre-amps to boost my tone.

The intro riff and Chorus riff are great to jam to and suddenly Marcos Curiel was on my radar as a guitar hero.

Alive

In its essence, there is a Texan Hard Rock groove in the intro and verses.

The Chorus is massive, about feeling alive for the very first time. And people liked it. Its sitting at 87.7 million streams on Spotify.

Boom

Another great riff to start the song off.

It’s perfect for the live show, with the catchcry, “Here comes the Boom”. And it’s a popular song for em as well, with 114.93 million streams on Spotify.

It also reminds me of the movie of the same name with Kevin James, who is a high school teacher and becomes a MMA fighter to raise money for the school.

Youth Of The Nation

At 175.96 million streams on Spotify.

Check out the drum groove which appears in the Intro and Chorus. And the kids choir brings back memories of Pink Floyd and I suppose it always will.

Celestial (instrumental)

A short instrumental filler track.

Satellite

How good is the Intro riff?

It’s pure hard melodic rock.

The Chorus riff showcases Marcos Curiel. There’s power chords, artificial harmonics and single note lines, all made to sound massive and supplement the arena rock

Sitting at 16.9 million streams on Spotify. It’s not on as many playlists as “Youth Of The Nation” and “Boom” and “Alive” however it’s as good as those songs.

Ridiculous

If you like hip hop, this is a pure hip hop cut, but it’s not for me.

The Messenjah

Man, that Intro. The clean tone octaves over a droning pedal note and then the distortion comes crashing in.

Check out the Chorus as well.

Guitarras de Amor (instrumental)

A flamenco Texan Western inspired cut. More filler.

Anything Right

It features Christian Lindskog from Blindside. Almost ballad like and it reminds me of “In The End” from Linkin Park.

Check out the section which has the violins and the guitar playing a melodic lead.

Ghetto

A Rush like Intro that reminds me of “Test For Echo” starts the song off as it goes from a world believing in love to the world being a ghetto and transitioning to a Staind like song.

Masterpiece Conspiracy

There is a staccato like tremolo riff in the verses as the words are spat out and rapped.

The Chorus has a metal like riff as the words are screamed out.

Check out the interlude when the bass starts running on its own.

Without Jah, Nothin’

A skip track.

Thinking About Forever

It has an acoustic “What It’s Like” from Everlast track with a nice flamenco solo from Curiel.

Portrait

The closer.

The intro arpeggio riff reminds me of Judas Priest before it goes into a System Of A Down like riff and vocal craziness.

Check out the brief guitar solo in the song in the slower section of the song. It reminds me of those 70’s albums that always had a progressive like track as the closer.

And by the end of the album I became a fan of guitarist Marcos Curiel.

Then, in 2002, Curiel was fired from the band by their manager because he wanted to work on a few other projects while still being a member of P.O.D. The band continued with a new guitarist and Curiel went on with his other projects.

In 2004, Curiel went to court over unpaid royalties.

And P.O.D didn’t achieve the same commercial success without Curiel, as their “Payable On Death” album in 2003 went Gold and their “Testify” album in 2006, received no certification, leading to the band getting dropped by Atlantic Records in 2006 and Curiel’s replacement also leaving. On the other hand, Curiel also didn’t achieve the same commercial success without the guys in P.O.D, so in 2006 he re-joined the band.

In 2008, they released the excellent and underrated “When Angels And Serpents Dance” with Curiel.

But “Satellite” gets all the likes and views.