Retrospective Series #5 - Oh God (Part 1)

I know that some of you are more metal than me.  So I like bow ties and grew up in the suburbs. So what?  Some of you were already burning churches while I was still attending them.  This new series of posts, then, is not for you.  This is for those of us who were encouraged and convinced to rock out to tunes with biblical subtexts.  And still today, I remain fascinated by the social phenomenon that is religion and all of its by-products.  It's all just so fun!!!  After all, there would be no black metal if there had been no organized religion to piss off the members of Venom.  So slowly but surely, I intend to cover the lot of it. 

Being an anti-social 13 year-old, I didn't participate much in church, but I most certainly subscribed to the christian doctrine at that time, just in a private, self-concerned sort of way.  Around that time my family became members of a new Southern Baptist location, which had their youth led by a particular gentlemen known as Eddie.  Eddie was preoccupied with the dangers of secular music and focused his concerns on offering all of us kids alternatives to the mainstream.  I use the term alternative more specifically than generally, as these were exact matches to popular acts.  For instance, if you liked Korn and Rage Against the Machine, you were told to listen to Every Day Life (which was before Limp Bizkit, but uncannily identical).  I recall a poster hanging on the wall that even listed these popular bands and their christian counterparts.  It was all unapologetically derivative, and purposefully so.  The idea was to offer a quick fix for these kids before they were led astray by the questionable content of secular art.
This was the early to mid nineties, when the christian industry was just beginning to evolve past the simple, non-entertaining praise and worship genre, which was utilized in churches for serious acts of spiritualism but not fit for casual listening during parties. The 80s had few pioneers, most notably Stryper, the glam rock sensation that somehow carefully piloted the glamor of 80s arena rock and still managed to give "all glory to god."  They dressed like honeybees, or was it hornets?  By 1994, Tooth and Nail Records, founded by money-hungry Branden Ebel, made christian alternative a common, household genre.  Their early acts were mostly indie, punk, and hardcore, but certainly not without a ska band, which was the easiest sell to christians at the time (there are different theories as to why this was).  The label's earliest roster included bands that while obscure at the time, became quite successful later, some on a grand scale, some with mere cult-followings, such as MXPX, Danielson Famile, Starflyer 59, and so forth.  This was also the first self-identified christian label that was putting out non-evangelical records that were just performed by christians.  The Cootees even had a swear word in one their songs!  How progressive!  Anyway, Tooth and Nail sucks now, just like most other christian rock, but luckily this series is devoted to the past, so let's talk about the memorable acts.

Frodus.  Fuck.  I love this band.  Their full name was Frodus Conglomerate International, a title based on an evil mind-control organization of the same name on an episode of The Monkees.  Their songs are thus about mind control, and the lyrics are written in a manifesto style, with each song continuing a full narrative of their hunt for our heads.  Spastic, stylish, and at times surprisingly anthemic, Frodus delivers.  They left their christian label for a secular one, put out a 7-inch and another lp, then finally broke up in 2000, blaming the Y2K bug.  A reunion tour happened not long after.  Members have been in Black Sea and other projects, and Shelby Cinca composed some electronic music using a gameboy.

Horde.  This band is historically important to christianity, perhaps more than Jesus. Now, there has been LOTS of christian metal.  After all, fundamentalism is based on the same aggressive attitudes as metal, so it was always a good fit, although older generations thought of it as blasphemy.  We had Styper, Living Sacrifice (who began as a Slayer derivative, then have progressively become more... crap), Tourniquet, Extol (I like them), but before most of that was even in the beginning stages, Horde, a solo act by Australian Jayson Sherlock, was ripping Satan a new asshole.  Horde's only album was recorded and released in 1994, just as the second wave of Black Metal was occurring in Norway.  This was the first ever christian black metal record (later the genre would by dubbed unblack metal or white metal), and it fucking destroys.  Everything is there that you would want and expect of black metal: solid state guitars, lo-fi-as-fuck production, blast-beats, shrill screams.  Titillating!  Being that this record was produced at the peak of black metal church burnings and brutal slayings, it was important that Sherlock release the record anonymously.  Endless death threats streamed into the label's mailbox, demanding the identity of this poser.  He survived.  In fact, he even played his only show ever in Norway in 2006, though I've heard there was a second performance just this year.  The record has been re-released multiple times by other labels, and is even currently available on Amazon.