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Fresh of the ending of their tenure on the label, P.O.D. has issued a compilation disc aptly titled The Atlantic Years.  The question with any greatest hits record must be:  If you are a fan of the band, is there any reason to buy a cd containing mostly songs you already own?

The Atlantic Years contains all the songs you would expect, but is not a lazy greatest hits release by any means.  The four big hits from Satellite (including MTV2's "#1 played video of the year" "Alive"), Southtown, Payable On Death and the group's most recent effort Testify.  Fortunately P.O.D. doesn't stop there.  In addition to one new and one unreleased song, the band includes the b-sides "If It Wasn't For You"  (Warriors EP Vol. 2), the excellent "Sleeping Awake" (Matrix Reloaded OST) and "Truly Amazing" (from Passion of the Christ: Songs).  For those of you doing the math, that works out to twelve tracks taken from the four albums released on Atlantic and five additional tracks.     The song order seems carefully chosen rather than than doing something weak like putting the tracks in chronological order.  It's a good mix, worth listening to straight through.  

Onto the material itself.  The weakness of the initial post-Marcos Curiel work is evidenced by the "meh" quality of Payable On Death tracks "Will You" and "Execute The Sounds."  Conversely, the Testify tracks "Goodbye For Now" and the reggae-rocker "Roots In Stereo" (featuring Hasidic Jewish rapper Matisyahu) are two of the stand-outs and easily on par with the Satellite hits.  Personally this reviewer does not feel "Youth Of The Nation" holds up, but listening "Alive, "Boom" and "Satellite" with fresh ears is a reminder of just how flooring the songs were when they were new. The trippy "Sleeping Awake" is still awesome; the other soundtrack song ("Truly Amazing") not so much.   

"Here We Go" (unreleased) and "Lights Out" (Testify) are average, nothing spectacular.  Included from the group's first Atlantic release Southtown are of course the hits "Southtown" and "Rock The Party."  A welcome and surprise inclusion from that album is the reggae hymn "Set Your Eyes To Zion," a wonderfully hypnotic, rhythmic piece.  The album-closing "If It Wasn't For You" is killer, epic and inspiring.  The new song for the disc is "Going In Blind."  Disregarding the formulaic song-structure, "Going In Blind" is a great song with some poignant, searching lyrics.  Curiously missing is the spectacular "Whatever It Takes" from the Any Given Sunday soundtrack.  The omission is unfortunate.

Just weeks after The Atlantic Years was released, news broke that Jason Truby was leaving the band of his own volition.  His replacement?  Original P.O.D. guitarist Marcos Curiel, who (for the uninitiated) left the group under controversial circumstances four years ago.  It seems that time has mended the relationships amongst the founding members and now, free from their huge corporate record label, P.O.D. is once again complete and whole.  To that end The Atlantic Years is a worthy and reasonably comprehensive bookend to the group's years with the label that made them nearly into a house-hold name.  While in some ways it's disappointing that Truby has left the group after coming into his own on Testify, a renewed and reformed P.O.D. recording on their own terms is something to be excited about.

If you are a die-hard P.O.D. fan, you already own the majority of the material included here.  Buy "Going In Blind" on the iTunes store to complete your P.O.D. collection.  If you enjoy the band's music but only have Satellite and maybe Southtown, you might want to add The Atlantic Years to your collection - there is certainly enough good stuff from the b-sides and Testify to make it worth your hard-earned money.  Recommended.

Ryan Ro / www.connexionsmusic.com