I've ridiculed the "pop punk" music set more than a few times - often with eminently good cause. These guys do an especially poor job trying to deal with larger themes, which makes them frequent targets for hilarious sendups by MuchMusic TV's Ed the Sock (for a treat, go to YouTube and enter "ed the sock" fromage).

The genre has produced some good music, however, and on the whole I'd have to say that its existence has left pop music better off. Not hard, I know, but every little bit helps.

Anyway, some of you who went to see Relient K's Christmas video yesterday may have noticed another Gotee Records vid called "In the Valley of the Dying Sun," by House of Heroes. I thought it was a nice exception to the "large themes/poor job" inverse rule. Perhaps not a surprise, in this case - you don't see may artists outside of the explicitly Christian genre explaining that biblical references helped contribute to their latest song.