Christian Music

[rumborak]

Neal Morse is probably the only Christian music I listen to. Just haven't heard any other that appealed to me.

I doubt any other would, that I can think of off-hand.  His music is the only Christian music that has ever appealed to me that was "music first."  Most Christian music is "message first".  Does that make sense?

Definitely does. And it's of course not just Christian music that exhibits this. Anything " message first " has the problem of treating the music as simply a vehicle and b) has a smaller pool of musicians to choose from.
Even Neal has occasionally exhibited it, where he musically just turned the crank and the clear focus was the lyrics.

[hefdaddy42]

"Regular" praise music won't have a five-minute instrumental section in a 20-minute song (or a 10-minute instrumental in a 30-minute song)

That's true, but our band has been known to turn a 4-5 minute praise song into an 8-10 minute praise song by adding instrumental sections.  It depends on the day, the message, the vibe, and the song, but it's not unheard of for us.

[Orbert]

Your praise band is cooler than mine.  The closest I can get mine to do is an instrumental version of one of the songs from the service, as an outro.  I tell them to just keep playing the progression, verse-chorus, and we'll take turns soloing.  I take a solo, look around, everyone else looks confused, so I take another solo, look around, everyone else looks confused, so eventually I raise my arm to signal "end after this next cadence" and sometimes we all finish together.  And sometimes I just get confused looks as they continue to play for a little bit after the rest of us have stopped.  By then, the sanctuary is pretty empty, so it's probably for the best.  We're not very good, but we always have people coming up afterwards to tell us how much they enjoyed the music, so we keep doing it. 

[hefdaddy42]

Your praise band is cooler than mine. 

Not something I hear very often. 

We do what we can.  We are all there to serve, and so worship comes first, of course, but we are blessed to have multiple musicians who have played for a long time, some in a professional capacity, and our personalities mesh well, so we like to stretch from time to time.  We all bring different influences to the table, but we also have a lot of similar influences, so what we make together almost never sounds like the original versions of any songs.  We've done some stuff that comes out pretty heavy, we do soft and mellow, we do tinges of reggae from time to time, and sometimes some different time sigs.  I would love to do something by Neal Morse, but that may freak them out a little too much  although our lead guitarist has a wonderful background in blues, jazz, and fusion.  I'm not worried about him.

[Orbert]

Your praise band is cooler than mine. 

Not something I hear very often. 

I figured that would get a chuckle.

Basically, the violinist and I are the only musicians in our band.  Everyone else can play, if I write all their parts for them and we rehearse everything for weeks.  The concept of ad-libbing or even just leaving something open-ended like "repeat until I signal for us to stop" genuinely baffles some of them.  I thought we were getting better, so this summer I again tried a few things such as I described above; I thought maybe we were ready for it.  We were not.

But as you say, we're there to serve, and people appreciate what we do, so it's all good.  Joyful noise.  ♫♫

[hefdaddy42]

Basically, the violinist and I are the only musicians in our band.  Everyone else can play, if I write all their parts for them and we rehearse everything for weeks.  The concept of ad-libbing or even just leaving something open-ended like "repeat until I signal for us to stop" genuinely baffles some of them.  I thought we were getting better, so this summer I again tried a few things such as I described above; I thought maybe we were ready for it.  We were not.

That's too bad.

We generally do 6-7 songs a week.  We don't repeat from week to week very often, although we have a core group of, I suppose, 30 - 40 songs that we mine from.  But we can go months between repeating an individual song.

We generally get the week's setlist from the director on Tuesday morning.  We have rehearsal Thursday night, then a run-through on Sunday morning before the service.

If we ever have an awful Thursday rehearsal, we generally have an outstanding Sunday service.  Not sure why that happens.

I'll see if I can post some recordings.

[Chino]

I'm not religious, I bought/loved the first three albums by a band called Red before I found out they were christian rock.

[hefdaddy42]

I like Red, too.  But I'm not sure I would characterize them as Christian rock.  The guys are Christian, but the lyrics aren't necessarily overtly Christian.  Plus, the music is really good.

I prefer to think of Red as "rock by Christians", not "Christian rock."

[Orbert]

Yeah, usually when people speak of Christian Rock, they're talking about Rock music with an overt message.  Praise music, basically.

[rumborak]

The Flower Kings have occasionally strong Christian undertones too, but it's definitely not in the foreground.

[bosk1]

@Hef and Orbert:  I hear you, but for the sake of painting with a broad brush, I will include bands like Red and Flyleaf.  Basically, I am considering anything with overt Christian messages in most songs to be within the intent of the original post.

I too share the dilemma of many mentioned above that while I love the message, the songs themselves that many of these bands write just aren't that good.  The few bands that I find enjoyable are:
-Neal Morse, of course
-Stryper - I have enjoyed them since high school, although they are a bit hit and miss.  I am blown away by the fact that I think Michael Sweet's singing an guitar playing are better now than in the '80s.
-Die Happy - I am probably the only person who has heard of them, but they wrote some pretty good songs.  Greg Chaisson was their bassist.
-Flyleaf - I liked their first album a lot.  The second and third ones...not so much.  I didn't dislike them, but they didn't really catch my interest either.  Not sure if they have done anything since.  Thanks for bringing them up, D.C.  I would have forgotten them.
-Red - I only have their latest album, and I like a few of the songs a lot.  Others are just okay.

I have Theocracy's lastest album as well.  And although I feel like a really should like it for a variety of reasons, it just doesn't do anything for me.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

I thought As The World Bleeds overall was just ok, but I Am and a few of the other songs are really fantastic.

[hefdaddy42]

Another really good Christian band from the 80s/90s that featured great musicianship was White Heart (I think someone else mentioned them).

[yeshaberto]

Yeah, I really like those guys

[rumborak]

Somehow this whole "praise music" thing struck me more as a protestant thing to do, but looks like there's this: https://catholicmetal.com

[Kotowboy]

I wouldn't call U2 Christian Music but Bono, Edge and Larry are all devout christians and they often sing about God and faith.

[Orbert]

Somehow this whole "praise music" thing struck me more as a protestant thing to do, but looks like there's this: https://catholicmetal.com

I played CCM for years at a place called "The Chapel" which was clearly a Christian church, but just as clearly avoided specific denomination.  I considered it a "generic Christian" service, but we had a Saturday 5:00 pm service and two Sunday morning services that were all exactly the same.

I always figured the Saturday evening service was for the Catholics, who (I believe) have the option of attending Mass on Saturday evening as opposed to Sunday morning.  Attendance was usually about the same for all three services, but that might've just been because Protestants found the Saturday evening service more convenient for the same reason Catholics do.  That is, you get "church" out of the way, go do your thing on Saturday night, and don't have to worry about getting up Sunday morning.

[mikeyd23]

BUMP

I guess this is probably the best place to post this, Decyfer Down dropped a new record today.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1kDnxQB2PVkYPhSWv7Gyw6

I'm about half way through, good stuff so far. Some nice straight up, melodic heavy rock.

[dparrott]

Was not a Christian most of my life (now I am), but I still liked Sixpence None The Richer and Sarah Masen.  Still only like subtle references in songs, nothing obvious.

[Chino]

There's a band called RED that I really enjoy. I had no idea they were Christian Rock until I went to a concert and it was specified on the ticket.

[Stadler]

^^^ I have a mental picture of you showing up with your King Diamond shirt, your Rush headband (with the 2112 pentagram), a bag of weed, and a 12 of Budweiser and wondering if you had the right date on your ticket.   

[hefdaddy42]

Red is fantastic, but although they sometimes tour with other Christian acts, I always thought of them as a band of Christians rather than a Christian band.

[King Postwhore]

Jars Of Clay
The Twenty Committee

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I used to listen to Deliverance and Whitecross.  WC's "In the Kingdom" was actually a pretty decent album.

[bl5150]

I like that the Christian music thread was started by the "chaotic ripper" 

I am agnostic but like plenty of Christian rock/metal , but there is a line where it gets too preachy.

Just a few off the top of my head

Stryper
Holy Soldier
King James
Mastedon (Elefante) and Elefante solo , although he sometimes crosses "the line".
Whitecross
The Brave

We've talked about Deliverance before Cozmo 

[Big Hath]

I've been digging into some 80's/90's christian rock recently, some of the better ones I've found are Idle Cure, Eden, and Sure Conviction.  Idle Cure had some really good stuff.

P.K. Mitchell released an album of pretty kick ass arrangements of old church hymns in the early to mid 90's.  Like I said, it's old hymns so the christianity is going to be in your face, but he did a great job with them imo.

[bl5150]

I've been digging into some 80's/90's christian rock recently, some of the better ones I've found are Idle Cure, Eden, and Sure Conviction.  Idle Cure had some really good stuff.

P.K. Mitchell released an album of pretty kick ass arrangements of old church hymns in the early to mid 90's.  Like I said, it's old hymns so the christianity is going to be in your face, but he did a great job with them imo.

Yeah.....Idle Cure were decent.  And I think you might have got Sure Conviction from one of my album posts ?  Glad you liked them - pretty obscure stuff but I really liked the "Get Ready" album - the rest of their stuff didn't seem as good..

[Big Hath]

And I think you might have got Sure Conviction from one of my album posts ?  Glad you liked them - pretty obscure stuff but I really liked the "Get Ready" album - the rest of their stuff didn't seem as good..

yep I think that was it 

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I like that the Christian music thread was started by the "chaotic ripper" 

I am agnostic but like plenty of Christian rock/metal , but there is a line where it gets too preachy.

Just a few off the top of my head

Stryper
Holy Soldier
King James
Mastedon (Elefante) and Elefante solo , although he sometimes crosses "the line".
Whitecross
The Brave

We've talked about Deliverance before Cozmo 

Yeah, the first album or two were tolerable, but that was before I had any refined taste in music. 

[jjrock88]

Stryper, Barren Cross, Saint, Guardian, Neon Cross, Sacred Warrior, Whitecross, Haven, Recon, Holy Soldier, Bloodgood, Joshua, Angelica, Messiah Prophet, Deliverance, and the Californa Metal soundtracks come to mind for me.  All great stuff.

[chaossystem]

Petra is a semi-progressive rock band that I would highly recommend.

Another " '80s" Christian band that I really liked is/was Resurrection Band, a mostly hard rock/metal group with male AND female l vocalsts.

There was also a "thrash" sounding band called Vengeance or Vengeance Rising.

[Big Hath]

Petra is a semi-progressive rock band that I would highly recommend.

Jekyll and Hyde is a really good album.

[bl5150]

Petra is a semi-progressive rock band that I would highly recommend.

Jekyll and Hyde is a really good album.

They're a band who varied greatly in their heaviness.  Jekyll and Hyde (the song esp) is really quite heavy whereas the other main album of theirs that I would rate (Beyond Belief) is pretty light melodic rock.

[Big Hath]

take a listen to some of their early 80s stuff.  Makes Beyond Belief sound like Slayer.

[bl5150]

No thanks