What is so great about Vengence Rising?

So, I purchased VR's debut "Human Sacrifice" after hearing tons of good
things about them. I pop it in, and.... nothing. This CD is complete
crap IMHO. Well, there is some good music scattered throughout the
disc, but jesus christ Roger Martines sucks nearly as much as
that guy from Wrath. The vocals alone ruin the whole CD. Surely they
are extremely heavy for their time and it's nice with some faithful
lyrics, but the music just sucks. Mostly average thrash with awful
vocals.

I'm sure they have released better, but I remain disappointed.

So, what is it that makes Veangence Rising so great?

i really dont know. I think it is mostly they are one of the first Christian bands of the genre...

Alex

Run for the hills! I think both of you just lost all your credibility on this board.

Human Sacrifice is their worst album, IMO. Try the "Once Dead" album before your opinion is solidified.

In 1989, their attraction to me is they were the music I love and singing about more intelligent topics than Satan and getting laid.

Good review.

Blasphemy!...seriously.

Vengeance Rising was arguably the first Christian thrash band in existence so they opened the door for tons of Christian musicians even to this day for that genre. The thrash was unique because it incorporated blues rock in the lead guitar which I'm pretty sure had never been done at that point in thrash. The vocals of Roger are not as good sure, but that adds to the charm for me as well as the production not being top notch. You can bet that if Vengeance never happened alot of your other fav christthrash would not be around....including Ultimatum.

There is no such thing as Christian thrash.

Eyesore wrote:

There is no such thing as Christian thrash.

So whats the point your trying to make??

I am not denying their influence on Thrash - I am just asking if I bought the wrong album.

stevegarveyfan wrote:

Run for the hills! I think both of you just lost all your credibility on this board.

Well, then kiss my credibility goodbye too, because I never understood what the whoop-de-doo was about V.R. either. I gave them several tries back in the day and the mongoloid vocals annoyed the heck outta me.

Much as I love VR...the vocals on Human Sacrifice are wretched. But at the time VR was the Christian extreme metal scene. Subsequent releases found him using better/different vocals. I'm in the minority as a big lover of the ENTIRE Released Upon The Earth sound.

Mglaffas81 wrote:

I am not denying their influence on Thrash - I am just asking if I bought the wrong album.

Maybe.Give Once Dead a shot before you write them off.Its my favorite by them.While I like Human Sacrifice I like the tightness and crunch of Once Dead better.

Quote :

I'm in the minority as a big lover of the ENTIRE Released Upon The Earth sound.

I'm there with you. I totally prefer "Roger Rising" over the earlier stuff.

Quote :

I like the tightness and crunch of Once Dead better.

It's definitely tighter and a much, much better listen. HS has sentimental value, and it does surely Thrash nicely, but Once Dead was on par with anything in my opinion.

I dunno, gimme the first album by Die Happy (which was essentially the Vengeance Rising band minus Roger) any day.

They are one of the first Christian bands of the genra thats part of it. Ive never heard in its entireity Human Sacrifice but I have "Once Dead" and "Destruction Comes" I dig both these albums when Im in the mood for Thrash thats what i'll pop in. on Once Dead I really love that 1) Roger is wearing a DELIVERANCE Shirt on the cover and 2) I love their version of Space Truckin, Once Dead has nostalgic value for me too... My cousin and i would jam out to Space Truckin it totally shreds

Destruction comes I love "Before the Time" and "Raegoul" killer tunes

Id say check out Once Dead and or get the Anthology

Perhaps ya just had to be there at the time. I love Human Sacrifice and Once Dead. I like all four VR albums, but those first two were fan-freakin-tastic in my book. Larry has such a unique style. I love his soloing. The songs were fast, for the most part, but didn't forsake hook. Glenn Rogers wrote some incredible riffs for that album, as did Doug and Larry. The guys also had a big blues influence, which was unusual for thrash metal in the 80's. The recording was sloppy, the playing was all over the place, there were mistakes, it was just young, energetic, raw, passionate, heavy thrash metal. Human Sacrifice is one of the few albums to capture that raw energy, not unlike Kill 'Em All or Bonded by Blood. After that these bands all became "professionals" and the music changed, probably for the better. However, if you were there during those early years of thrash metal, those albums will always hold some nostalgic value that newer fans will never understand.

My favorite song of Human Sacrifice has always been "Burn", which is the reason the Ultimatum recorded a cover of that classic.

Roger's vocals may be an acquire taste I guess, but I've always dug him.

I bought 3 of their albums and I don't think they are that great either.
And not because of the vocals, because of the rest of the music.

But I tend to think that about a lot of bands/albums and that a lot of much better stuff gets ignored by the metal masses.

I like it because it has a swagger....a groove to it that other bands didn't have much of and have even less of today. And personally I think its easily their best album.

I remember in 1989 walking into an little Christian music/book store in the middle of nowhere New Jersey while I was making a run for the company I was working for. I grabbed the demo for Human Sacrifice and popped it into the cassette deck, put on the head phones and smiled from ear to ear! This was intense. I hadn't heard that raw energy since Metallica's Kill 'Em All and this was a CHRISTIAN band! I bought the tape right there and jammed it from there on. I was on summer break from college. When I returned in the fall I played the cassette for my room mates, who were also metal fans and they all loved it. None of them were Christians, but it didn't matter. This was just good metal.

I remember thinking to myself that day I bought that tape, if I ever form a Christian band, this is what I want to be doing. Who would have thought that a decade later and I would actually be singing at the reunion show for that very band. It was surreal.

It's kind of like Eric Clapton...hear it now and it's "eh"...but to hear it then was like "WOW!!!"...

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

It's kind of like Eric Clapton...hear it now and it's "eh"...but to hear it then was like "WOW!!!"...

I don't know. I still think a lot of CREAM's stuff is great (though many of their songs were just too long IMHO) and I am still blown away by many of the thrash albums I loved in the 80s.

I tend to believe that truly great songs stand the test of time and withstand trends.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

It's kind of like Eric Clapton...hear it now and it's "eh"...but to hear it then was like "WOW!!!"...

I don't know. I still think a lot of CREAM's stuff is great (though many of their songs were just too long IMHO) and I am still blown away by many of the thrash albums I loved in the 80s.

Right, but you didn't like it to begin with. You have said yourself that you dislike nearly any metal that has a "groove", or "swagger" as Rex put it.

spectrefate wrote:

more intelligent topics than Satan and getting laid.

don't knock em

ultmetal wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

It's kind of like Eric Clapton...hear it now and it's "eh"...but to hear it then was like "WOW!!!"...

I don't know. I still think a lot of CREAM's stuff is great (though many of their songs were just too long IMHO) and I am still blown away by many of the thrash albums I loved in the 80s.

Right, but you didn't like it to begin with. You has said yourself that you dislike nearly any metal that has a "groove", or "swagger" as Rex put it.

That's not the main reason I don't like it. I like 90s PANTERA and the first MACHINE HEAD album, for example.

But the point of my post above was responding to Shawn about how things can blow you away back in the day and then diminish in your mind later on.