Song Of the Day - CLVI - Top 7 Christian Metal bands of the 80’s

Ah yes. What we need on this thread is a bit of controversy to stir things up a bit. Vengeance Rising seemed adept at courting with it by being possibly the first growling vocals Christian Thrash Metal band. Though some songs fell into a slower, Stoner metal vibe, these guys mostly ripped through fast, highly aggressive music and bold lyrics like a bat out of hell. Suffice to say this caused discomfort even on more mellow metal listeners, so the less it is said about the feelings of ultra-conservative Christians (who saw Metal as the root of all evil) the better.

But the turmoil wouldn’t stop at the band’s inception: after two very good releases, all of the band members except for the singer left under obscure conditions. The now infamous Roger Martinez (who at the time was a full-time christian pastor) decided to press on and released two more albums with session musicians, only to finally dissolve the band, utterly renounce his faith and sink into a destructive spiral of many years where he seemed to turn on everyone that had any dealings with in the past.

To this day, a lot of people in the Christian Metal community don’t know how to deal with such an abrupt change of heart by someone who was so vocal on his convictions, but regardless of that, Vengeance Rising's four albums remain an historically interesting part of this sub-genre.

Vengeance Rising - Can't Get Out (1990)