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With America immersed in an increasingly controversial war in Iraq, and soldiers coming home weekly in body bags, protest music is once again flourishing.

In recent months, high-profile artists such as Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Pink, Audioslave, the Flaming Lips and the Roots have addressed the conflict in songs or on entire albums.

Most of that music comes from a second- and third-hand perspective, an outraged response to newscasts and media reports from overseas. But two recent albums break the mold. They address the consequences of war from a more personal vantage point; they're musical bulletins from the front lines.

On the Refugee All Stars' debut album, "Living Like a Refugee," a ragtag group of musicians and singers who survived Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war tells its story in song, an epic tale of slaughter, exile and redemption. Michael Franti and Spearhead's "Yell Fire!" chronicles Franti's visits to Baghdad, Israel and occupied Palestine, armed with only an acoustic guitar and a video camera.

In addition, movies documenting these extraordinary journeys through what can only be described as hell on Earth have been released. "The Refugee All Stars Movie," shot by fledgling filmmakers and musicians Zach Niles and Banker White, has been playing at festivals around the world, and Franti's "I Know I'm Not Alone" is now available on DVD. Both provide a powerful visual counterpoint to music that describes the human cost of war and celebrates the spirit of those who rise above their harsh surroundings.

"The Refugee All Stars Movie" depicts a world immersed in chaos, as tens of thousands died and 2 million fled a bloody civil war in the West African nation of Sierra Leone. These refugees spent the better part of a decade moving from camp to camp in neighboring Guinea. Along the way, a longtime musician from Freetown, Sierra Leone, named Reuben Koroma and his wife, Efuah Grace, started putting together a band that would eventually include 11 members. At first they had no instruments, but this didn't deter Koroma from writing and performing songs that documented their experience.

In 1994, Koroma's father was hacked to death by machete-wielding rebels, and his mother died while trying to escape. Rebels chopped off the arm of one of his future band mates, Abdul Rahim Kamara, and cut off the hand of another, Mohamed Bangura, after forcing him to kill his child. After fleeing Freetown in 1999, Koroma and Grace drifted through five camps. Music saved his life, he says.

"I was highly traumatized," Koroma said in a phone interview from Guinea, where he was awaiting visas that would allow him and the rest of the Refugee All Stars to tour North America. "Sometimes you have something painful in your mind, and there is no way to express it. I was able to express that pain in songs."

"Living Like a Refugee" cuts through all the politics and sloganeering that can weigh down protest music to deliver a moving testament about the healing power of music. The cross-generational blend of voices, ranging from a teen rapper (Alhaji Jeffrey Kamara, aka Black Nature) to a guitarist in his 50s (Francis John Langba), is a stunning affirmation of hope in the face of debilitating odds.

Underlying both the Refugee All Stars' "Living Like a Refugee" and Franti's "Yell Fire!" is the tacit acknowledgment that the most fragile commodity in any war is the human spirit. As long as that survives, these albums proclaim, no people can be defeated.