Welcome to “Christian Rock,” Rolling Stone contributing editor Christian Hoard’s weekly music pick and the newest addition to our weekly New Music Report podcast. This week, Hoard’s high on Portland punks the Thermals, showing off a bit of the video for “Now We Can See,” the title track from the band’s fourth album. The record is supposedly written from perspective of a corpse, but Hoard says some of the lyrics seem to be just about getting wasted and playing punk rock, though the concept is strongest on opener “When I Died.” Hoard admits to preferring the trio’s previous album, The Body, the Blood, the Machine, but notes Now We Can See is more melodic, and amps up the band’s magical blend angst and euphoria. For more on the Thermals’ album, check out our interview with singer-guitarist Hutch Harris.

Plus: Hoard is encouraged by news that leftist Bay Area rap group the Coup have donated MC Boots Riley to Tom Morello’s new project Street Sweeper Social Club. The band posted its first single, “100 Little Curses,” on their MySpace page this week, and Morello described the band’s sound as “revolutionary party jams.” “It’s got huge steamroller riffs combined with depth, charge, funk, while Boots unloads clip after clip of incendiary rhymes rich with satire and venom.”

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