A supergroup if you will, formed by Richard Christy after five years absence from the metal scene, is a heavy metal band with imho extreme metal touches here and there. The band is comprised of said drummer, Steve DiGiorgio, Tim "Ripper" Owens and Jason Suecof, who is one of my personal favorite guitarists, with his own studio and his own bands Crotchduster and Capharnaum ( godly), and I've been dying to hear his leads again, and here they are in full force.
If one wonders as to the name of the band, the origin of its name was explained on May 20, 2009. It derives from a series of radio prank calls he and Sal Governale made to a Tradio show on a Christian radio station. In response to the pranks they received, the host described how he prays for them, thus "saving their soul to be saved by God's grace...not in the devil's hell where you'd be putting your nails in the charred walls of the damned".
Personally I feel that this album is great, though not perfect. I'm more of an extreme metal fan, so listening to traditional, power or other types of metal can be tiresome for me. Ripper is hardly my favorite vocalist, I always prefer Barlow for Iced Earth. But here he seems like he was given absolute free reign of how he wanted to sing, and just about every song sounds great vocally, with some really good choruses. There is plenty of double bass throughout the album and Christy does an admirable job back behind the kit, while the riffs are excellent. Its different from Suecof's other projects and guest solos, and its one of the things that suprises me the most, is his playing style. the guy is amazingf, able to sound nothing like his trademark sound, in fact if not for reading his name I wouldn't have even known it was him.
Overall a great band worth checking out if you like, you guys probably already know about this, if so I apologize. The Myspace is
http://www.myspace.com/charredwallsofthedamned , sorry I know not how to hotlink on this board. Apparently they have a vido up for Ghosttown the single, which is robably my favorite song off of the album. So whats you're thoughts on them?