Awake

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.