Cool Christian Metal

Christian bookstores tend to carry very little real metal (classic, power, black, death, etc.) usually it's filled with cookie cutter metalcore, nu, emo, etc. Mardel suprises me everytime I go in there. Yeah they still have the dime a dozen bands but they always pull through with a few good releases. Retroactive records has a strong prescence there so I went to see if maybe there were copies of the new Ultimatum album (they had Puppet and Symphonic but nothing else). This caused me to look for something else (I just sold some of my non-metal CDs and wanted to treat myself by buing ONE album). I found so many that it was impossible to pick one. However, God gave me strength and I setteled for one:
Stairway-No Rest/No Mercy (limited edition)
My first time hearing them (I know many of you probably know of this one already) good old fasion heavy metal (no glam, hair, or pop). Another gem from Retroactive.

Some of the bands I had to pass over but were awesome non the less:
Adiastasia-Life War
Symphonic power metal of the highest order (hardest one for me not to get). I WILL get this in the future!!!
Angel 7-Black and White
Black and Death vocals on top of high quality progressive metal. Another future addition to my library.
Tortured Conscience-Every Knee Shall Bow
Fast and brutal death metal combining the styles of Metonia and Scrolls era Mortification. This music can get old after awile IMO but I will probably get the album just for the AWESOME album cover (actually all these have high quality album covers).

If I had the money ALL these would be in my possesion, but, "good things come to he who waits" and I will be waiting. By the by, the three that I didn't get are from Bombworks Records, a company that almost rivals Retroactive in high quality Christian metal.

Cool! We have a store like that here in Albuquerque too. They have quite a bit of good stuff. Actually, the guitarist of Ultimatum, Robert works there. I think he's the one who ensures there is a good, solid supply of some decent tunes.

Checking out Adiastia right now on myspace....not bad at all!

DallasBlack, do you work for BombWorks Records?

The new Ultimatum won't be in the stores until the release date of Oct.
30th. Thanks for looking for it and we sure do appreciate you picking
it up.



ult

GrandNational wrote:

DallasBlack, do you work for BombWorks Records?

Sure don't but with the quality of the music they release, I will proudly support them.

ultmetal wrote:

The new Ultimatum won't be in the stores until the release date of Oct.
30th. Thanks for looking for it and we sure do appreciate you picking
it up.



ult

Then Mardel may have it yet. I will check it out after the next pay day that comes after Oct. 30th. I would have ordered it online but I am not allowed to use my debit card for non-essetial spending (my dad who is helping me with my budget has set certain criteria to assure I don't over spend).

I normally get the christian metal that I want - stuff on retroactive and bombworks and Rivel - from The End. They are way cheaper than Radrobbers and dont have that annoying $25 min. Chrisitandiscs is ok but they dont have a lot of the releases.

for me the bigger problem is fitting in the christian releases. With so much stuff to get like new Primal Fear, Turisas, Povertys no crime, Fair to Midland, sieges even and such most of the christian releases take a back seat due to quality. The Adiastasia is a great example - interesting music but really lousy production. Its hard jusifying passing over other stuff for this.

Alex

exact33 wrote:

I normally get the christian metal that I want - stuff on retroactive and bombworks and Rivel - from The End. They are way cheaper than Radrobbers and dont have that annoying $25 min. Chrisitandiscs is ok but they dont have a lot of the releases.

for me the bigger problem is fitting in the christian releases. With so much stuff to get like new Primal Fear, Turisas, Povertys no crime, Fair to Midland, sieges even and such most of the christian releases take a back seat due to quality. The Adiastasia is a great example - interesting music but really lousy production. Its hard jusifying passing over other stuff for this.

Alex

In the past I usually get mine at blastbeats. As for the last paragraph, in order for me to get the better metal releases I have to go to Virgin Megastore which is equivalent to putting a former smoker in a crowd of smokers. My plan is to save up some of my spending money until I have enough to binge at Virgin. The money that I got from selling my old CDs is not enough for that so to satisfy my hunger for more music and to save money at the same time, I went to Mardel (I could go to Best Buy but as far as new Primal Fear, Thunderstone, Epica, etc. releases, Best Buy is a wash). Nightwish's new one was at Wal-Mart so that is the only exception to the rule.

DallasBlack wrote:

GrandNational wrote:

DallasBlack, do you work for BombWorks Records?

Sure don't but with the quality of the music they release, I will proudly support them.

I do have all of those 3 albums you listed.

exact33 wrote:

I normally get the christian metal that I want - stuff
on retroactive and bombworks and Rivel - from The End. They are way
cheaper than Radrobbers and dont have that annoying $25 min.
Chrisitandiscs is ok but they dont have a lot of the releases.

for
me the bigger problem is fitting in the christian releases. With so
much stuff to get like new Primal Fear, Turisas, Povertys no crime,
Fair to Midland, sieges even and such most of the christian releases
take a back seat due to quality. The Adiastasia is a great example -
interesting music but really lousy production. Its hard jusifying
passing over other stuff for this.

Alex

TheEndRecords will have "Into the Pit" soon as well.



ult

I need to hit MySpace and check out these bands...

I like Stairway. They are old school, straight forward, NWOBHM.

exact33 wrote:

I normally get the christian metal that I want - stuff on retroactive and bombworks and Rivel - from The End. They are way cheaper than Radrobbers and dont have that annoying $25 min.

LOL @ "RadRobbers." Good one!
I haven't ordered from them for quite a while though I used to be a pretty regular customer. Since I found out that I can get a lot of the newer releases (i.e. Retroactive) cheaper via CDBaby.com I haven't been back there.

They were a gold mine in the late 90s when all of my old Intense/Frontline and other Christian metal cassettes were crapping out on me and I needed to upgrade them all to CD copies though. If it weren't for them I still wouldn't have half of my Deliverance, Sacred Warrior, Die Happy, etc. stuff on CD.

Quote :

They were a gold mine in the late 90s when all
of my old Intense/Frontline and other Christian metal cassettes were
crapping out on me and I needed to upgrade them all to CD copies
though. If it weren't for them I still wouldn't have half of my
Deliverance, Sacred Warrior, Die Happy, etc. stuff on CD.

Very true...this is how they served me. I doubt I'll need to do business with them again. Seems I can always find the same thing somewhere else for less...

Tortured Conscience-Every Knee Shall Bow is a great release. It almost didn't come out, as the initial record comapny went under (just like Frost Like Ashs - tophet album). Luckily Bombworks picked it up, and we get to hear this glorious death metal release. Similar to Mortification and Metanoia you say? TC are much better then those bands!!!

The Adastayangfjdag album is mediocre at best, imho.

The Angel 7 is good for what it is, but the style is not for me.

GrandNational wrote:

DallasBlack, do you work for BombWorks Records?

I do. Actually I work with both Bombworks and Retroactive Records. I worked on every one of those albums mentioned above.

Quote :

Similar to Mortification and Metanoia you say? TC are much better then those bands!!!

When I consider Scrolls and In Darkness Or Light that's some high praise there, KMORG....

I must find a way to check them out.....

scottmitchell74 wrote:

Quote :

Similar to Mortification and Metanoia you say? TC are much better then those bands!!!

When I consider Scrolls and In Darkness Or Light that's some high praise there, KMORG....

I must find a way to check them out.....

They are on Myspace

I might still have some of these in my trade/sell pile. I'll check when I get home if anyone is interested.

kmorg wrote:

Similar to Mortification and Metanoia you say? TC are much better then those bands!!!

The Adastayangfjdag album is mediocre at best, imho.

The Angel 7 is good for what it is, but the style is not for me.

The Scrolls era Mortification and Metonia comparasion was just to give a general idea of what they sounded like (over the past couple of years I have pretty much ignored most death metal so I didn't have much else to compare it to).

As for the Adiastasia album, I think the major problem is the production, which I will admit is pretty poor. However when I listened to it I could hear a lot of potential in those guys and maybe with some better producers, they could be much better.

Angel 7, I liked what I heard but there is a good chance I'd get bored with them as I would Tortured Conscience but I'd have to give multiple listens before I could make a proper judgement.

All in all it is probably a good thing I passed these over for now but I will still keep them in mind later on down the road. In the end with my desire to have more metal with Christ centered lyrics I am willing to lower my standards until it improves. I don't feel that as a Christian I can only listen to Christian music but I like to have more music that reflects my beliefs and the good bands that do that (Narnia, Seventh Avenue, Ultimatum, Tourniquet, etc.) don't release albums often enough. As for other forms of Christian music, no thanks (except for a few here and there)!

P.S. If I ever get a chance to form my band then I will make sure that we make our music Christ centered AND high quality.

DallasBlack wrote:

Tortured Conscience-Every Knee Shall Bow

Killer album. I picked it up as soon as I read about it. Completely brutal death metal with an awesome album cover to boot.

spectrefate wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

Tortured Conscience-Every Knee Shall Bow

Killer album. I picked it up as soon as I read about it. Completely brutal death metal with an awesome album cover to boot.

GREAT cover!!

the Tortured Conscience sounds cool,might have to pick it up

ultmetal wrote:

I like Stairway. They are old school, straight forward, NWOBHM.

Just listened to the Stairway album all the way through for the first time and I will now have to see if it's possible to get some of their other music. The guitar solos in this album are fantastic and in large supply and the rest of the music is top notch as well.