Metal Reviews

Hmmm, may be I should check this band out sometime. I do like Technical Death Metal (probably the only death metal I seriously enjoy).

I think one thing that people in the Christian Metal Community need to realize is that most Christian Metal Bands (actually, probably almost all of them) are influenced by secular metal bands. Extol is influenced by Death (although whether Death is really "secular" might be debatable since Chuck Schuldiner, who actually converted to Christianity at one point in his life, wrote a lot of spiritual songs on the last two Death albums) and Morbid Angel. Demon Hunter is influenced by Metallica, Pantera and Slayer. And so on.

It depends largely on what you mean by "brainwashed." Believing in God and Jesus Christ is not being brainwashed (whether you choose to believe in God and/or Jesus Christ is a conscious/spiritual decision you must make at some point in your life - based on your own logic, life experiences, etc). Being brainwashed means being blindly led to believe that all things secular or non-Christian are evil/Satanic. And that if you even QUESTION the bible and your own faith (which I think every intelligent person has done at some point in his/her life), you're automatically going to Hell. So not only are you being blindly devoted to God, but you're devoted for the wrong reasons (just out of fear rather than out of love). Unfortunately, I too have had to witness people like that over the course of my life. Sad, really.

I feel a sudden and striking need to say that most of the religious people in my life, Christians too, are close-minded fools. I'd burn their churchiz in a heartbeat.

I realise that nice religious people exist, but I wouldn't want to live near them.

am i the only one who finds the "christian metal" tag annoying? listening to it, ignoring the lyrics, it's like all the other metal music.

I rather like it, since when I see the tag I know to ignore the band. Christian Metal just flat out sucks, Extol is the only thing worthwhile in the entire genre, and they aren't all that great. The entire message of Christianity is just flat out wrong for Metal music, and it almost always devolves into some twat sitting on a pulpit crafting shitty music around their preachy lyrics. The music is always an afterthought, a means to deliver the message, nothing more.

TROUBLE!?!?!?!?

GOOD GOD (no pun intended)!!! How could this man forget about the great Trouble?! Or... or... Theocracy?!

Or was he referring to the genre?

I've never heard Trouble, but Doom Metal isn't exactly my forte.

Theocracy is just another shitty generic Power Metal band.

BAWWWWW

Trouble are a pretty good band. Funnily enough, they claim not to be Christians.

Really? I just heard them referred to as Christian metal and it definitely works with their lyrics :\

Could've fooled me...

So they're just a doom metal band who happen to have religiously-tinged songs?

You'd think so wouldn't you? but apparently, much like Sleep, they were just stoned.

I disagree. I think that, done right, Christianity can work in metal music. A lot of power metal bands have Christian lyrics in some of their music. Soulfly has a lot of Christian songs. Black Sabbath wrote one or two Christian songs in the 70's. The trick to writing good Christian metal songs is writing music that actually suits your lyrics, but still sounds good. Some metal songs you might've never guessed are Christian actually are. Besides, metal is supposed to be about being honest and expressing yourself. If a metal band decides to write one or two Christian songs and honestly express their personal beliefs, they're just as metal as a band writing songs about how corrupt Christianity is.

The Christian Tag is given not just to metal bands, but rock bands in general. There's Christian Punk, Christian Alternative, even Christian Adult Contemporary. The reason why is because Rock Music, since its inception, has received a ton of Christian Protest. So when a rock band comes along that actually devotes all of their music to Christianity, people take notice and the band stands out from the rest in that regard. Hence the term "Christian Rock."

Of course, you don't necessarily need to be a "Christian Metal" band to write the occasional lyrically-Christian metal song. Again, I mention that a lot of power metal bands such as Savotage and Blind Guardian have written a sizable number of Christian songs throughout their careers, despite not being full-blown "Christian Metal" bands.

The very heart of Metal is about rebellion, non-conformity, and thinking for yourself. Christianity is the exact opposite of all of these things, it's about being indoctrinated, following in line, and obeying. There's a huge difference between writing about Christian themes and being an outright Christian band. Christianity is a mythology just like anything else. Using some of it's themes in lyrics is old hat, but that's entirely different than writing "Love Jesus" nonsense.

And Sabbath wrote an entire Christian album, Master of Reality is songs aobut just that.

I think the stories in the bible make for awesome metal lyrics. As for anything else Christian then it kinda depends how they're delivered.

No, metal is about sex, violence, pain, war, occultism, fantasy and other general ass kickery. Christianity has no place in it whatsoever. Except that it's pure fantasy.

Fuck, some of the characters are also pretty badass and metal. Like Elijah, motherfucker flew around in a flaming chariot! Very hell's angels. And shit, the whole number of the beast thing comes from the book of revelations.

The whole essance of Christianity is a common belief in an all-loving God and his son Jesus Christ. Sharing such a belief is not at all being a "conformist." Actually, I would NOT be thinking for myself and would be conforming if I renounced my faith and became an atheist. Because I do believe in God (both logically and spiritually), and (albeit a little less assuradly) in Jesus Christ. Corrupt Christian Leaders promote "blind faith" and "being a Christian robot." But the real Christian faith doesn't promote that at all. Notice that a lot of metal music slams corrupt Christians rather than the Christian faith itself (there's a big difference between the two).

And don't kid yourself. I've seen several power metal bands in particular INDIRECTLY proclaiming "God loves you" in their lyrics. Vaguely enough so that the average joe doesn't notice.