If you had to list the basic elements of most heavy metal songs, it's a pretty certain bet that God would not feature in them, except in a “F
uck off” or “You don't exist” or “I will destroy you” kind of way, or some other derogatory usage. Metal is about Satan, blood, noise, guts, girls, beer and many other things, pretty much all of them linked, if not to the devil then to what we shall refer to as bad behaviour. Killing, fu
cking, drug use, annoying the neighbours (possibly by either slaughtering and/or fu
cking them, and not necessarily in that order, or by just blasting your music so loud they want to move, or more likely, want
you to move) and various other kinds of antisocial behaviour all make up much of what Metal is all about. You don't hear Ozzy or Halford singing about keeping the peace, or obeying your parents, and the kind of things Varg exhorts you to do are best kept between you and him.
So as we all know, Metal is about smashing or at least standing up to the establishment, making life difficult for those who stand in your way, keeping it loud and not being particular about who you screw, or whether or not they want you to. In short, everything the Church is against. But there are some bands who revere God and yet manage to stay totally bad-ass (within, obviously, accepted Christian parameters) and they practice what is known as Christian Metal.
Now, I hate being preached to as much as the next guy, whether it's someone trying to force me to buy something I don't need, convince me of something I know is not true, or just pushing a viewpoint I don't agree with. But what really bugs me the most is people trying to cram their religion down my throat. As a kid growing up in Ireland, you had little choice: there was no dissenting opinion. Everyone believed in God, everyone went to Church, at least until you were old enough to be able to make these decisions independent of your parents (age eighteen), at which time you could decide to go to Mass or not. I decided in the negative. But up until then, you believed. You had to. It was forcefed to you at school, reinforced by your parents when you got home. It was on the telly. It was in books. Priests would visit the house and you'd have to show them the sort of respect normally reserved for royalty. You were dragged off to mass every Sunday morning, whether you wanted to go or not (and we never did, well I didn't anyway) and made endure the pointless droning and equally pointless chanting responses for about an hour before you were set free. You had to dress in special Sunday clothes, and you couldn't eat beforehand as you had to receive Holy Communion. What was
that ever about?
Anyway, this rather unpleasant trip down memory lane has a point. As I said, I don't like to be preached to, and after being spoonfed Christianity – and indeed, Catholicism – for most of my younger life, I tend to give it a wide berth these days, and get annoyed when someone tries to convert me or asks me why I don't believe. My answer is usually succinct and to the point, if a little rude.
Which leads us, via a somewhat meandering if typically Trollheartesque path, back to Christian Metal.
For the next few weeks I'm going to be looking into this phenomenon here, checking out some of the bigger, and smaller, bands in the scene, such as it is, and give you a taste of what they're like. If you can, try not to dismiss them out of hand, particularly if you hate religion, as if you can get past the sometimes poe-faced sanctimonious posturing in the lyrics (though in fairness, this can't be said of all Christian Metal bands) there's some really good music there to be enjoyed.
When the Crusaders went to fight in the Holy Land, they justified what became some of the most reprehensible crimes, nothing short of war crimes or even crimes against humanity, under the excuse of being there to take Jerusalem back and regain the city for God. They called it “Killing for Christ”. Whereas back in the Dark Ages they wielded swords and dressed in armour, now they wield guitars and keyboards, drums and microphones, and dress in denim and leather. Probably.
And so instead of killing for Christ we're now going to be
The first band I want to look at is one I'm a little familiar with, while most of these will be new to me. This band I featured a while back in my main journal, and was at the time quite surprised at how good they were, how heavy. They are given perhaps the longest genre tag I have seen in a while over at Wiki, to wit: “Christian neoclassical progressive power metal”. Hmm. Well, having sampled two of their albums I can probably agree with this: there are elements of all of the above in their music, and their lyrics are certainly centred around Christian worship.
The Great Fall – Narnia – 2001 (Nuclear Blast)
I can't find any details on how or where their beliefs began – maybe they were always Christians – but the album I experienced, 1999's
Long Live the King was certainly a lot more in-your-face from the start about Christianity and mending your evil ways etc. This looks more like it may be a recounting of the tale of Satan's dismissal from Heaven, but we'll see. This is the fourth of so far seven albums, the last of which was only released this year and comes after a seven year hiatus during which the band had officially broken up.
With a title like “War preludium”, you know what to expect: a short track consisting mostly of effects (wind, distant rumble of thunder, you know the kind of thing), with some words as someone (Satan?) mutters about how tomorrow he's going to change the world then we're into the first real track as “The countdown has begun” (no, not “The final countdown”!) hits and we're off at a fine lick. Vocalist and co-founder Christian (yeah) Liljegren is in fine voice as the drums hammer along and the other founder of the band, guitarist Carljohann Grimmark pours on the riffs, though to be honest this does sound quite familiar to
Long Live the King. It is kind of standard power metal, to be fair, but it rocks like a good thing. If this is the story of Satan's fall though, there's not nearly enough anger in the vocal. Harder riffing then in “Back from Hell”, but it seems that I've misinterpreted this as being a concept album, as this appears to be the tale of a soldier back from the war and trying to justify the killing he had to do.
Better vocal on this, almost shrieking at times, hard pounding guitar alternating with reflective, gentler riffs, though the siren at the end is pretty cliche. It does lead however into a nice passage on piano and guitar, with another spoken part which ends the song. “No time to lose” seems to carry on from this, as the soldier in that track mentions he's
”Heading on pilgrimage to the ancient city/ To restore my sanity” and in this next song he seems to be on the way. Maybe this is a concept after all, just not the one I had originally expected. I must be honest: I'm not as impressed by this album as I was with
LLtK; maybe it was the novelty initially that got me so excited about it, but I'm a little bored now. That said, there's a crunching midsection in this song with a really emotional guitar solo which might go some way to restoring my faith, no pun intended.
Interesting idea, combining a soft piano intro with the sound of vehicles crashing, then speaking of crashing, the riff from the guitar snarls in, and with choral voices on the keys we're off again as “Innocent blood” does seem indeed to continue the story of the soldier's pilgrimage as he cries
”Jerusalem here I come” – a very gothic/symphonic metal choir thing going on here too. Some cool Arabic melodies to I suppose denote that the soldier has arrived in the Holy Land, only to find war is raging there too. Great solo from Grimmark here; kind of reminds me of Santana at times. Fades out nicely and into one of two instrumentals. This one is called “Ground zero” and for an instrumental it's quite long, over five minutes. Starts off a little like “The
Peter Gunn theme” then ramps up and it's okay but a little indulgent perhaps. “Judgement Day” certainly brings in the progressive metal part of the band, and it hammers along nicely, taking its time to slow down to a grinding chugger in the middle. Some great shredding here from Grimmark and some fine keys too, then the second instrumental is much shorter, just over a minute, which takes us into the closer, the epic “The Great Fall of Man”.
This is epic in every sense of the word. It runs for over fourteen minutes, and it concerns, well, the end of days obviously, with a three-minute instrumental intro then the song does give the idea, as it says in the lyric, of tramping across the desert under the hot sun. Very powerful and dramatic singing here from Liljegren, almost operatic. Interesting use of a sort of nursery-rhyme melody in the eighth minute. Some more spoken word then near the end, over some dark synth and hissing percussion, then a mix of sounds of panic and chaos attended by a heavily riffing guitar as I guess we go down for the final time. And a very abrupt end indeed.
So it seems this may have been a concept album after all, but rather than focus on Satan's fall as I had originally assumed, I think that it now might follow the journey of the spirit of a dead soldier who goes to Rome to soothe his soul after dying in an unnamed war, finds death and destruction even there, and, possibly, sits back and watches Mankind fall into the abyss as the Apocalypse takes place. Or something.
Track Listing and Ratings
1. War preludium
2. The countdown has begun
3. Back from Hell
4. No time to lose
5. Innocent blood
6. Ground zero
7. Judgement Day
8. Desert land
9. The Great Fall of Man
I don't know: I think I was expecting more, given what I have already heard. This comes across more as a kind of standard prog/power metal album with elements of the Apocalypse in it rather than the rather more entertaining tracks like “Living water” and “Dangerous game” off
Long Live the King. A good album, sure, and I did enjoy it, but not really the showcase for Christian Metal I had expected. Maybe I just chose the wrong album. Here, take a read of this and see what I mean.
Narnia: Long Live the King