For christian bands i enjoy:
Sacred Warrior
Scarlet Rayne
Recon
Siam
Haven
Griffin
Fifth Angel
..and a few others. They're pretty much all CHristian "Like 'Ryche" acts. Of course i can't take them as seriously as their atheist contemporaries.

Griffin aren't really Christian, nor are they really much like Queensryche (other than the murky guitar sound of FotG bearing some similarities to that of The Warning).

I hadn't heard that one before, and now that I have, I retract my previous judgement on Stratovarius' cover : Riot's version is only bested by the original masterpiece.
Thanks for this, but seriously, is there any end to Riot's talent ?

Unfortunately, yes.

Great bands. I love FAITH FACTOR too, who are kind of along those same lines.

If WARLORD counts as a Christian band then I think they are the best Christian band of all-time.

For anyone who cares I just got my Dark Age cd in the mail today and it is definitely legit for anyone who thought it was a bootleg. Sounds excellent too. So glad to finally have this in the collection.

Ah there's so many.. Glacier, Mercury Rising, Lordian Guard, Griffin, Tyrant, some Pentagram and Saint Vitus, Trouble, Believer, Saviour Machine, early Solitude Aeturnus, Veni Domine, Forsaken, Tourniquet, Jacobs Dream, Scarlet Rayne and the list goes on... Heck even many non-christian HM bands have the few odd christian songs or use very christian themes in their lyrics (like Candlemass did a lot).

If Satan comes to thee then thou should call on me
And I shall be at thy side
For if thee do believe thy soul will be set free
God's words ring true in my mind

I'm not burning, look inside
Crystal Logic's what you'll find

I love the first MERCURY RISING CD but I always thought they came across as agnostic.

Just wanted to point out that Griffin are really only specifically Christian on the second, far inferior album. On the debut there's mention of "Judgment Day" but nothing specific about Christianity. They're not at all a "Christian band". To be honest I think most of those bands were just Christian by momentum, having been brought up as such, and included certain Christian themes (Armageddon, Satan, Hell, damnation, etc.) in their lyrics because they're cool, much as they did with themes about war, history, and banging sexy ladies. Mark Shelton for example snuck in a few minor references that could be construed as Christian, but later bashed Christianity pretty explicitly, and now I think he's sort of quasi-pagan/agnostic. In the 80s a lot of these bands were made up of kids in their late teens/early 20s, many of whom probably still hadn't hashed out exactly how they felt about all this stuff. I have no problem with occasionally Christian bands (Tyrant, Glacier, etc., it's only the ones that are explicitly preachy that bug the shit out of me (Scarlet Rayne, Believer, etc.).

Interestingly enough, if you actually examine Tyrant's lyrics, they really come across as more ambiguous than you might expect at first glance. Yes, you have songs explicitly referencing Revelations, Armageddon, the Nazarene, the Rapture, etc., but then they say stuff like this, from "Babylon":

Footsteps in the sand,
As we marched across the land
Leaving the sea behind
We’ve crossed thousands of miles,
With still thousands left to go
How I long to see the gates of sweet hell...Babylon!

Sailed across the water to die in Babylon
On a quest of the dying, and the damned
With the gift we will speak
In the tongues of the dead
We will resurrect the city of sin

Resurrecting the city of sin doesn't sound very Christian to me.

Or from "The Nazarene":

Fight for the Nazarene, fight for your soul
Fight for the Nazarene, fight for your soul

Saving the world from the clutches of Satan
He is no mortal man
Riding a white horse down from the heaven
He killed with one stroke of his hand

Jesus killing people with his bare hands? Doesn't sound like any Jesus I ever heard of.

From "Into the Flames":

You’re locked in your casket scratching to get our
Feel your soul is lifting, floating all about
The sky is turning black, so are all your souls
I pray to the lords of sex ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll

I don't think the Bible has anything in it about praying to the lords of sex & rock & roll.

Obviously there's a lot of Christian stuff in there too, but it strikes me more as a band using cool Armageddon-imagery and the damned burning in hell, rather than preaching beliefs they take very seriously. Note Tyrant's lyrics pretty much always describe burning in hell and being damned in the first person, rather than the preachy bands that always talk about it in the second person. Tyrant aren't telling you what to do, and that's why I'll listen to them but not Scarlet Rayne et al.

Yeah, Crystal Logic is a surprisingly pro-Christian album.

As a rule, I generally only have a real problem with Christianity in metal if the band seems interested in converting the listener, rather than entertaining them; such is the case with bands like Apostle, Sacred Warrior, Recon, and Scarlet Rayne. Stuff like Steel Prophet, Tyrant, etc. is more listenable. In fact, I've recently gotten into Rebellion's full-length (And The Battle Begins, or some such, can't remember for sure). Pretty cool progressive USPM.

So I have a vague request. I believe the band was speed metal, had some kind of chessboard on the cover, AcidWorm was fond of them, and the production was old school. Anybody have any ideas?

Tyrant's just the fucking best. I'm really hoping the new material is insane.

I like how "Beginning of the End" is a bit more Christian-esque than a handful of songs, but it's probably the most epic one to me. Damn that song is so good.

And I like how... instead of like, "I pray to God, set me free!", it's "I COMMAND God, set me free!"

The vocals on the track are absolutely out of this world. I can't believe there's really no other band out there like this, the whole drowning atmosphere, background shrieks, Glen's vocals completely dominate. But I guess nobody else could pull it off nearly this good.

Necro, This? http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Ja ... ames/11669

Nah, that wasn't it. Good band though. I wish I could be more precise.

Edit: it was this band: http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Prodigy/3540262604

This song in particular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYeE9XdNpBo

Fucking awesome.

^ That Oracle/Prodigy album is pretty much the pinnacle of USPM perfection. I absolutely love it.

I've always interpreted Crystal Logic as more "positive" than "Christian." I hope the two aren't exclusively mutually associated in metal.

And a Griffin wearing cross on the cover. But yeah not overly christian band.



C'mon Believer isn't all that preachy! I have more problem with Glacier's "When Heaven's at Hand" than with most Believer.

Believer - Dimentia


Believer - What Is But Cannot Not Be


I think that the christianity of Believer comes off way less annoying than say Scarlet Rayne's or Glacier's on their EP (demo is a lot better in this aspect) or the worst of all is Barren Cross!

The first album expresses existential angst and despair which is answered to by christianity on the second album.

Shelton sings about the "Holy Mother", being saved by believing in the light and fighting Satan... I'm not sure you can make a more openly Christian song, other than reciting Bible passages.

Yeah, there's like one song that briefly mentions a holy mother and a father of light. On another song he mentions Lords of Light (plural), on another he mentionds Gods of Hell (plural), and Ragnarok, too. Crystal Logic is pretty fucking far from a "Christian album", and though the song itself has some Christian themes, it seems more like a response to accusations of Satanism than a declaration of faith.

Thanks, mate. Listened to Crom the other day. Fucking nice. Unfortunately, the second album is totally missing out the epicness of "Vengeance".

What accusations of Satanism? And he also talks about fighting Lucifer and the Daughter of Hell in the Riddle Master. On The Ram, it's a bit ambiguous, he's mentions "God's command" and the final song talks about the Anti-Christ, although it also mentions Ragnorak. Maybe in this case it's interchangeable with a Christian apocalypse, maybe not. Personally I think the album lyricwise, is the usual power metal themes of fighting demons and battling evil, there's just a decidedly Christian twist to it. Although I'd say Crystal Logic itself is pretty much a pro-Chritian song.

Getting down with some early VR today.

SOLDIERS OF THE NIGHT!

I think it's pretty obvious that Shelton's interested in all sorts of mythology, including Christianity.

Trick Or Treat released new details on there upcoming album today:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/trick-or-treat/trick-or-treat-new-album/10151099672636974

So, basically like MANOWAR then.

Um, how about the incredibly common ones being levied at rock and metal in the US in the 80s? This moral panic for example often took potshots at metal. Remember the whole "Satanic messages" you could hear on records by playing them backwards? That's what the song "Crystal Logic" is responding to. Remember that Kansas is in the Midwest US and pretty rural in general.

God is dead......ahmm, but I don't mind certain bands that write about christian subjects just like Dio writes about wizards and dragons. It's all make believe so it works great with my beliefs.
I suggest not looking too deep into lyrics,not for the high nerd factor but its just pointless.

OM are pretty good jesus rock,ooops wrong thread.

Lyrics are not pointless they are part of the music just like vocals or anything.

Yeah it's retarded when people say shit like the lyrics don't matter. Rack off.

Sorry, it appeared you were saying people were specifically accusing Shelton. Even still, I think that's kind of grasping at straws, since nothing in the lyrics alude to that at all. Has Shelton himself ever said anything like that?

What are you, stupid? Read the first fucking lines:

For all the sorcery that we have told to thee
They call us demons from Hell

That seems plausible, especially in the same song with "We never ever will die 'cause Heavy Metal is life
And not eternal hell". That still doesn't not make it a pro-Christian song.
If anything, it's Shelton simply affirming his Christianity with or through heavy metal... is that not something other Christian metal bands do?

Kamelot playing a new song live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dahVHf6C ... re=g-all-f

I'll reserve judgment until I hear the studio version a few times.

I never said Lyrics are pointless, guys. What I said, and quite clearly was that trying to decipher and debate lyrics is pointless. Everybody interprets them differently and what they mean to you are different than what they meant to the author or your buddy. Sometimes they mean something different to the author entirely as the years pass. To be clear, I find lyrics to be very important. I, myself have been a singer and lyricist for 25 years. Trust me they are 50% of a song if you think about it. Here is an example of how important lyrics are to me. I've never been able to get into death metal due to the fact that I can't understand what the singer is saying beneath the growls. Don't get me wrong because I love the music but I need lyrics to be interpretable except when it comes to other languages of course. Examples would be Loudness and Vintersorg, among 100's of others.

(rant over)

Ok I understand now what you meant. By the way why is it so important to hear the lyrics if you can read them along with music? I mean there are plenty of cases when it's hard to decipher what some singer is saying even if he's doing clean vocals. And why is it different with languages you don't speak/understand?

Okay,I'm gonna sound like an old man here but the honest truth is I've never really dug death metal vocals . I'm only 41 and grew up listening to the beginning of the whole style,basically. I've even lived in the Tampa bay area and not to name drop but Chris Barnes is a personal friend of mine,even(old smoking buds). I do enjoy the style but I'm extremely picky about the way the growls are sung and for the record I'm not a fan of Cannibal Corpse or Six Feet Under at all. I do however love a ton of non English speaking/singing bands for some reason. Whats odd is I find Finnish bands are among my most played.. Viikate, Kiuas and stuff.

Ha, there have been songs where I misunderstood almost every single word. That's why it always makes me mad when I get an album without lyrics in the booklet.

I've actually been digging Falconer a bit lately. Yeah, they're a pretty far cry from USPM, but they're sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. I was into them several years ago when I first got into metal and I decide to dig them up again recently for nostalgia's sake. I was surprised to hear that the debut and Northwind are both pretty solid to my ears. Not incredibly consistent, but with tunes like "Mindtraveller", "Wings of Serenity", "Tower of the Queen", and "Catch the Shadows" it's hard to go wrong. Anyone else here like 'em?

Also, for you USPM lovers, check out this insane power/thrash song I stumbled on last night.

Hey Joph, why would be Falconer a guilty pleasure of yours? Because from what I remember, there's nothing embarrasing about them. Actually, you know what? I'm gonna listen to them right now to refresh my memory, as they were quite good when I listened to them the first time, but didn't go beyond the first impression for some reason.