Sorry I've been absent from blogging of late. The Tour de France was on. For three weeks. With like five hours of coverage a day. I don't feel bad losing most of my July to watching bike racing, since I'm not a sports fan in general and don't spend most of my weekends glued to ESPN, Monday Night Football, whatever.
It is still Monday, so I'm going to slide one of these in just under the deadline. I think, though, that the Metal Monday series might come to a screeching halt after this one, since I've found a tremendous blog about all sorts of heavy metal music, culture, etc.: METAL INQUISITION. Be warned: although it's quite an informative, entertaining blog, occasionally the contents are... well... not safe for work (although, I suppose it depends on where you work). Henceforth, I'll leave you in their capable hands.
At any rate, today's post is on Vengeance Rising, a Christian metal group. A friend of mine let me borrow one of their tapes in high school and I had no idea they were a Christian band (I had no idea my friend listened to Christian music, for that matter--his hobbies included shooting cats with a BB gun). Much like Christian rap, Christian metal seems to have quite a lot of bias to overcome. Both genres seem to be strongly affiliated with many things that Christianity frowns upon. The lead singer sheds some light on this conundrum:
(video courtesy of--you guessed it--METAL INQUISITION)
Bands like Slayer* (to take perhaps an extreme opposite example) are more along the lines of what most people think of when they think of heavy metal: dark lyrics about death, hell, Satan, etc. Bands like Vengeance Rising, however, use many of the same tropes to present a message of hope and salvation. There seems to me a sort of cognitive dissonance when I hear Christian metal (or Christian rap): how can this really be Christian? Musically, they're aligning themselves with a variety of non-Christian values. The intent is to lure people (like my teenage self, no doubt) who have questions about life, the universe, and everything; who like Slayer and Megadeth (I was never a big fan of either of those two bands, come to think of it) or Metallica and to speak to them in their vernacular. They're more like chameleons, I'd say.
One of these days, I think I'd like to write a book on the contradictions inherent in Christan metal and rap. So far, I have yet to find a Christian rap artist that can hold a candle to a mainstream rapper (although T-bone is pretty darn good). Most of them sound pretty cheesy, I think--their metal counterparts were more successful at blending in. Perhaps it's just a matter of time?
In the interest of fair and balanced, there were some pretty cheesy Christian metal acts, too:
*Obviously this isn't the "official" video. I chose it because of a) the album cover (Show no mercy); b) the song title; c) the actual music.
It is still Monday, so I'm going to slide one of these in just under the deadline. I think, though, that the Metal Monday series might come to a screeching halt after this one, since I've found a tremendous blog about all sorts of heavy metal music, culture, etc.: METAL INQUISITION. Be warned: although it's quite an informative, entertaining blog, occasionally the contents are... well... not safe for work (although, I suppose it depends on where you work). Henceforth, I'll leave you in their capable hands.
At any rate, today's post is on Vengeance Rising, a Christian metal group. A friend of mine let me borrow one of their tapes in high school and I had no idea they were a Christian band (I had no idea my friend listened to Christian music, for that matter--his hobbies included shooting cats with a BB gun). Much like Christian rap, Christian metal seems to have quite a lot of bias to overcome. Both genres seem to be strongly affiliated with many things that Christianity frowns upon. The lead singer sheds some light on this conundrum:
(video courtesy of--you guessed it--METAL INQUISITION)
Bands like Slayer* (to take perhaps an extreme opposite example) are more along the lines of what most people think of when they think of heavy metal: dark lyrics about death, hell, Satan, etc. Bands like Vengeance Rising, however, use many of the same tropes to present a message of hope and salvation. There seems to me a sort of cognitive dissonance when I hear Christian metal (or Christian rap): how can this really be Christian? Musically, they're aligning themselves with a variety of non-Christian values. The intent is to lure people (like my teenage self, no doubt) who have questions about life, the universe, and everything; who like Slayer and Megadeth (I was never a big fan of either of those two bands, come to think of it) or Metallica and to speak to them in their vernacular. They're more like chameleons, I'd say.
One of these days, I think I'd like to write a book on the contradictions inherent in Christan metal and rap. So far, I have yet to find a Christian rap artist that can hold a candle to a mainstream rapper (although T-bone is pretty darn good). Most of them sound pretty cheesy, I think--their metal counterparts were more successful at blending in. Perhaps it's just a matter of time?
In the interest of fair and balanced, there were some pretty cheesy Christian metal acts, too:
*Obviously this isn't the "official" video. I chose it because of a) the album cover (Show no mercy); b) the song title; c) the actual music.