Righteous Bands That Must Not Be Missed Or Forgotten, The 80's!

Today I have been thinking about how music has evolved, especially metal, and some of the finer points in Christian Rock/Metal history. I know I am going to miss some great stuff here in this post, but please humor me for a bit while I recap the first bands in my life that gave me the music that I enjoyed listening to from the Christian Rock genre.

1981-2

My knowledge of Christian rock music began in 1982, with the Resurrection Band. I had left the public school in my hometown, and started at a private school. I remember some kids on the bus talking about how heavy the Rez Band was. So I got a copy of DMZ on cassette from my friend who's dad worked at a Christian bookstore. I took it home and ended up playing the whole tape over and over for almost the entire weekend.

Resurrection Band - Military Man
The album 'DMZ' was released in 1982, and the Rez Band was already known to be a rockin' Christian band. But with this album, and songs like 'Military Man' and 'Babylon', the Rez had definitely shown the ability to match the output of secular radio rock bands of that time period.

Another band that stepped even further into 'heavy' territory around this time was Jerusalem. The third album by this Swedish group has some of the heaviest, and most definitely longest, jam out rock the Christian music world had seen. Their epic song "Sodom" lasts over 12 minutes, and includes an opening piano serenade. On the title track for the album, Warrior, the wah-wah pedal is full tilt on the intro...

1983

I was fortunate to get to see this band, Solid Rock, perform in an auditorium somewhere, I don't remember. But I had their album, at least one of them, and really liked their jam-rock style. This song is from the album 'Interdesign'. Click the pic to watch the video

1984

Although Stryper set a post in Christian rock history in 1984 with their EP release, The Yellow And Black Attack, the album that year that had even more influence on metal as a whole was the debut album by Trouble. I think many would say this is one of the heaviest albums released to date, and possibly kept afloat the 'doom' metal sound that has continued and revived in this millennium. They were able to turn a Bible scripture, Psalms 9, into a metal head banging fest without losing the feeling of the scripture.

1988

Christian metal was on the rise. Other bands like Saint and Whitecross were showing that Christian musicians were willing and able to attract fans from all walks of life. Rex Carroll offers up some shredding solos on the intro, "Eruption" style! Because Of Jesus!

 1989

Christian metal was still rocking hard, but the crossover had begun. Metal and thrash had merged, and the speed of punk rock had influenced some huge bands in the metal scene. Christian music was expanding too, giving us bands such as... The Crucified.

Well, I'll try to tackle some more of the timeline in another post. Hope everyone has enjoyed the flashback!