Christians, saved by grace through faith in Jesus, can listen to aggressive music without compromise. But that doesn't mean we can listen uncritically. Let's assess these songs through a biblical lens, and in the process, sharpen our metal!
More sharpening found here: www.youtube.com/@MetalSharpensMetal?sub_confirmation=1
Not sure I'd classify them that way just since I understand Lorna Shore to be deathcore (and they don't sound that similar to me). But I try not to be too dogmatic on the subgenre discussion anymore.
Great video, brother. The first time I heard "Take This Life" back when the album dropped, I couldn't hear anything other than a calling out to Christ. Anders isn't saved but this song can definitely be a love song to Christ
This was a time period in In Flame's history that I had a lot of trouble getting into. While I can appreciate how good the song is nowadays, when Come Clarity came out, I wasn't into it because I fell in love with In Flame's old Melodic Death Metal albums like Whoracle, The Jester Race, and Colony. I was one of those guys for years that just refused to hear anything else they put out. This album has grown on me considerably since then though.
Katatonia is absolutely satanic, and they are all also brilliant. I hope Jonas and the boys can be united with Christ and continue to make genius music if possible
Hey man, have you checked out Oh, Sleeper? I'm not a religious guy but the lyrical story that their two middle albums (Son of the Morning and Children of Fire) tell is unreal. So fun to read along with and really understand, never mind from a Christian's point of view. If you check it out, let me know what you think or do a vid on them. Love Trivium and this analysis. Keep it up man.
Hey thanks for checking out the video, even coming from a different perspective. Yes, I love a lot of Oh, Sleeper's stuff. There's a video on the channel for The Finisher where I go over a bit of the concept. I agree, super powerful.
Oh snap Opeth? That song is crazy good, but the lyrics ARE insane lol. But on the topic of the video, I haven’t heard trivium in forever, going to have to listen to this album again.
As a 50 year old guitar/bass player who played in 3 different "Christian Rock" bands, I can say I preferred playing "secular" venues as opposed to churches, youth groups, and schools associated with Christianity. The biggest reason was the "unfed" people got to hear the message of our music. Absolutely we liked playing the Christian venues to uplift the brothers and sisters, to provide a ministry of entertainment, but it meant more to reach the unsaved. As a result we had to play in some pretty wretched places...in my second band, we travelled from CA to TX, ending up in a venue in El Paso called the Rug Burn. It was a car repair garage converted to a punk venue. The echo was terrible, so they put up shag carpet on the walls to diminish the reverb of the concrete block walls. Over the carpet, they put posters of punk bands. When we were setting up, our drummer could only fit in one spot. This happened to be flanked by a poster of NOFX's Heavy Petting Zoo, which showed a man sexually fondling a sheep. This show really tested our resolve and we were pretty disgusted. My favorite show was playing in the quad at UC Davis during the day in the summer. UC Davis is a pretty liberal place, but we had a great show. Other times we played bars and had people ask us what our music was about. As 20-somethings, we definitely had songs about "girls" and the angst of being young men, but being able to share the meaning of the more spiritually-inclined lyrics was so cool.
I hear that, it's enjoyable to feel like your work is doing more than just preaching to the choir. Would you say that you had a more solid foundation at the time? I wonder if part of the difficulty with Underoath was how quickly they blew up at such a young age. They might have been pushed more towards certain bills and given less time to have a fruitful Christian life outside of the limelight. For people in smaller bands it might be easier to maintain the tension.
@@MetalSharpensMetal Of the three bands, the 2nd was the most serious. We wanted to get signed and make a living or whatnot. The drummer and I went to church together, were best friends and roommates, and we lived in the city we went to college at. The other three guys were in town for school, so they didn't have a local "home" church to attend. So the drummer and I had a home, the other three attended other churches or went to chapel at school (Simpson University, Redding, CA). We had the same issues as just about every other band I guess...we fought like brothers, we squabbled, we got sick of each other. Eventually we kicked one of the guitar players out because 1) he was a jerk and 2) he was regressing as a musician. He was literally the 5th best guitar player in the band, since everyone played guitar. Our singer ended up having an unplanned premarital coitus event with his fiancé and they had a kid on the way, which set us back quite a bit. They got married forthwith but his wife wanted him around during the 3rd trimester and beyond, so the rest of us had to figure out if we wanted to wait it out or move on with our lives. We individually and collectively decided on the later. I went to law enforcement academy and married, our drummer got his degree and married, and our guitar player moved to Canada and eventually had success as a band leader/front man in a Christian emo band. We got to play with a lot of up and coming signed Christian bands. It was definitely one of the best, most fun, times of my life. Breaking up the band was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I don't know what would have happened if we had found success, got signed, made an album, and went on a big tour.
@@scotttill3847 thanks for the story! It seems very wise of you to look back on it with fondness but understanding that it could have been a very different/challenging road if you were met with more success. I think back to my band days and wonder how I had the time to make it work. It was way before kids though, so it wasn't that much of a challenge. We had no chance of going anywhere serious when I'm being honest, and the breakup kinda made sense as most of us drifted to different phases of life. I see it as a difficult time for young believers who might consider delaying kids, career pushes, important moves, etc. in order to pursue the dream. My band had some straight edge guys so the party temptation wasn't that big (I wasn't social enough for them anyway). But I was still around many people who questioned my beliefs. Luckily I had matured in my faith enough to go toe to toe with the most aggressive of them, but I can see the Underoath situation would have played out so differently. They were so much younger in life and in faith, so I don't begrudge them more than I pity them.
@@MetalSharpensMetal In the mid-90's it was a new thing. We were a Christian "alternative" to alternative rock...basically alternative alternative. We didn't sound like anyone else in particular. I was more of a metalhead, our singer was into grunge, our first guitar player was into stuff like Poor Old Lu, our other guitar player was into Smashing Pumpkins and britpop (The Smiths especially), and our drummer was grunge and metal. We all loved Oasis, Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, Hum, and others. We had songs that were all over the map: power pop, punk, early emo, grunge, and just alternative. We broke up when we were finally starting to feel out where we wanted to go musically. We wanted to get on Tooth and Nail Records...they had all the new, upcoming Christian Alt-rock bands like Sometime Sunday, Starflyer 59, Puller, Stavesacre, etc. We got to play at the 2nd or 3rd TOM Fest in Washington. I have a ton of great memories and wouldn't have traded those experiences for just about anything. It's a bummer that things didn't work out, but at the same time, I've been blessed in other ways and have tried to do my best to bless others. I work in law enforcement with addicts, prostitutes, thieves, and the mentally ill...I know I've helped more than a few folks over the years. I falter at times because I deal with a ton of negativity and human pain and misery, but I am always a work in progress.
I remembered I had that Trump clip in the intro...this was all edited and uploaded a couple weeks ago, so it's unrelated to the wild news from a couple days ago. But still, crazy times in our world.
Hey bro, I'M A SOCIOPATH and I don't appreciate you SLAMMING US! In all seriousness I REALLY need to listen to more Trivium. They are a band I always passed on for whatever reason. I never had an issue at all with them, I just never took the time I guess.
Because I found them during this album they really stood out to me. If I first heard them later I'm not sure I would have gone back and gotten the same attachment. But this album and some of their more recent ones are pretty sweet.
@@MetalSharpensMetal when I was doing my old podcast Trivium was the most requested band for us to cover and I always shied away cuz I knew I was gonna have to learn everything about them in less than a week ha ha.
OMG i loved your channel! As a christian, analysing what i hear, specially metal has been something i've always done, and it's so necessary! I love explaining these sorta concepts behind the music and lyrics to my friends and showing them the artistic integrity and validity of heavier stuff. Blessed to find someone that does that to others! God bless you and your house man. Oh, and T H A L L
@@nathanaelgazzard7989 for me, family subjects are the most tender. Songs like Future Bird by Vola;The Salesman, The Husband, The Lover by The Receiving End of Sirens; Hello Drifter by Spiritbreaker. Lower Still by My Epic is another tearjerker.
Hi fellow brother! There aren't so many of us that recognize the beauty that exists in such dark music. I have moved away from most of it as I deepen my walk with the Lord, but Opeth and a few select others have remained. There is something ironic about creatures revolting against their creator by mastering the gifts that only He could have given them. We are blind until the Spirit opens our dark eyes. God is glorified through great art, in spite of the rebellion of the artists. The composition and execution are majestic. Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. I will listen to more of your content. I am hopeful for the ideal Christian Prog Metal artist/group that will "get it". The Gospel is the richest subject matter, full of Mercy and Wrath, Grace and Judgment, Redemption and Despair. If only someone could execute it, not sounding like Opeth necessarily, but at that level of coherent thematic integration, to put weight and grit where it belongs and majestic beauty elsewhere... I want to recommend to you my other favorite prog band: Karnivool The entire "Sound Away" album is a masterfully composed, executed and recorded album (there are a couple of less interesting tracks, but on the whole it's top). The theme is moving away from "religion". I'm pretty sure Christianity is what's in view, but it's not explicit. Even through it's wrong, at least it not vain hedonism, or murderous demonic stuff. It's worth interacting with the theme and absolutely worth listening to the music, amazing stuff. If you're up for the journey, I recommend the last two songs: Deadman & Change. They conclude the theme and play into each other. Deadman is from the perspective of a man on his deathbed. The epilogue is funeral bells, a dirge, took me way too long to figure it out. And it leads into the final track. Change has some theme of rebirth, indicating the death from before may have been a metaphor, not literal. But musically, brother, it's euphoric. Goliath is another track from that album, much more condensed musically, but still extraordinary. I feel like that's their most popular track. Sorry for the essay, but lastly, if you're ever interested in doing a podcast, or a conversation (recorded or not) about metal music, music in general or like topics, from a mature Christian perspective, we should connect.
Hey brother! Thank you for your essay, I appreciate all of it. I really like your description of how we sometimes use our gifts to lash out against God, but He still uses it all for His glory and our good. Great insight. And I can't tell you how many times I've thought about having a super theologically solid Christian band version of Tesseract specifically. There are some GREAT Christian metalcore bands today (Convictions comes to mind), but it felt like the full orbed prog metal band that makes concept albums with movements and heavy instruments...doesn't exist in the way I was hoping they would. I could be totally wrong, and maybe they do exist out there, but I haven't quite found the perfect mix of rich theology and prodigious song writing. Another album that I would love to see a Christian iteration of would be Februus by Uneven Structure. I know I've heard Karnivool, but I can't remember any of their songs. I've added those 3 to the list. And I would absolutely do a podcast type thing! Email me at metalsharpensmetal7@proton.me and we can connect. Thanks for stopping by!
You may have to review your top 3 or 5 metal vocalists after you get to know Pain of Salvation. No growls there but Daniel's voice is amazing. They are also swedish and play prog rock/metal. If you're curious, King of Loss would be a good start, as it showcases their sound, but every song, every album is very different.
@@MetalSharpensMetal i bet you'll love it. All albums are conceptual and most songs are linked somehow. As for lyrics, well, you got a lot to dissect. Hard reality beautifully written. Food for thought, actually. Best enjoyed front to back album listenings for their concepts and diversity. Enjoy.
That's so cool! Im a catholic and Katatonia is my favorite band ever, I'm obsessed. So nice to see other christians enjoying the band. I would love to see you reacting to "Follower" from The Great Cold Distance. I think it has an interesting lyric. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for checking out my review! Oh man...I just read the lyrics to Follower and checked out another couple songs. I'm seeing a bunch of recurring themes that seem to point to very specific family events in Jonas's life, and I'm...blown away. If he's hinting at the things it seems he is, then wow his lyrics are darker than I thought. I really liked the music on TGCD too, so the song is definitely in my list now.
@MetalSharpensMetal Well, before I was christian I was a 80's metal(DIO, Iron Maiden) and 90's thrash guy. I still like those genres, but don't like the message so I stick to christian bands. My wife and I met through metal and have recently started making our own. Our goal is to make some metal jams for Jesus that our brothers and sisters in Christ can enjoy for free. We ain't there yet, but that's the goal.
@@MetalForEmmanuel I took a peek and think you guys are doing cool things. Thanks for stopping by, maybe I'll introduce you to another Christian band here.
Who cares what you like or don’t ? You are fooled by religion,therefore untrustworthy! Spend some real time educating yourself before you listen to music you can never fully understand as a closed minded person ,see an open mind isn’t fooled into believing such utter nonsense,and any small amount of education on the subject shows all of religion as immoral and completely man made ! See a real god wouldn’t allow all the published lies in that bible … A real god wouldn’t even know what punishment is …everything is as he wanted ! A real god would NEVER need to have so many VERSIONS of his word . Faith is disingenuous and demeans the entire human race ,why would you suspend reality to believe something without evidence,or even a shred of proof ?
This is my favorite core song, it has everything you want. Good vocals, energy and some of my favorite lyrics in all of metal. Tim hiring a hitman on his wife is defintely terrible and there are no excuses for it but I think he has learned from it which reflects through the lyrics of this song. It also struck a chord with me especially since I got my life together and started trying to do better on a daily basis, great song.
6:25 I don't get the punk comparison... Maybe I haven't listened to a lot of punk? It's definitely not as great as Holy Hell forward but I might be biased; I love everything Daybreaker and onward.
Ya I find the intro of Delete/Rewind and The Blues to be pretty hardcore, blended with punk. I can't really think of a classic punk band off the top of my head, but even like a darker Blink 182 or New Found Glory would fit here
Such an amazing song. Mikael's vocals were peak here. Good analysis too, when I read the lyrics to this album when I first got it I was definitely like "oh man....I need to go take a walk in the day time" it was so dark ha ha.
@@MetalSharpensMetal Its an aptly named album Ghost Reveries. Everything since My Arms Your Hearse has been about ghosts in some capacity. The music being haunting only further seals the deal.
I love metal that is also a prayer. This one starts off talking to self and shifts to talking to God - kind of like some of the Psalms. Recognizing that self-effort isn't enough to break out of the darkness and fear but that there is someone with more than enough power to wake me out of my dark sleep. The fact that they do this with musical technical excellence just makes the impact of this song so much more powerful. Thanks for sharing your love of heavy music and your love of Truth. Keep it up!
I'm not a Catholic and have no authority there. I would first recommend you leave Catholicism and its treadmill of works and doctrines that aren't found in the Bible. That said, as a protestant who also believes in hell, I don't have a problem hearing Manuel describe his struggles in this song.
I have a lot of interest! It's a definite banger and those guys are great. I have a few videos scheduled already but Holiness Cries is on my list for sure. Thanks for watching!
My favourite song from my favourite album of all time, thank you for this analysis! It's difficult to articulate how this song makes me feel, it's so beautiful and dark and cathartic all at once.
Thank you for your kind words and excellent breakdown on the songs and lyrics. Couldn't have explained it better myself. Also appreciate the spiritual encouragment! -Michael
Yooo thank you for checking out the video! You guys are making some awesome waves and it's been fun to watch. Would you have any interest in doing an interview? I haven't done any yet, though I'm trying to setup my first one currently...if you want, shoot me an email at metalsharpensmetal7@proton.me ! Thanks brother.
Yo, the first reaction with meaning (at least first I found). Loved the architects vid, would love more of them. Also I’m curious about what you think about knocked loose.
Hey thanks for the kind words! Getting to the deeper meaning is definitely my goal here. And noted about Architects. Knocked Loose...haha I have some thoughts. First impressions of the new album is that they had bad Christian experiences growing up and want to vent about it now. I never really liked their genre of pissedcore so I hadn't planned to do a vid on them unless people asked.
A couple years back, a buddy of mine played this song in his car and showed it to me for the first time; neither of us knew the other was a big fan of their Via album. Hearing this song for the first time was an experience I'll always remember, and I remember telling my buddy I thought the track was cool and that was about it. Later that day I looked up the track with the lyrics, and the song hit me in the gut hearing it a second time. Definitely the best song tribute to a fallen friend that I've ever heard, and the overall sound/songwriting in this track is peak Volumes imo.
Dude yes, peak Volumes for sure. And it's awesome to hear others process deep songs so profoundly too. Those are special memories to share with friends.
Hahaha I'm not gonna touch that with a 10 ft pole because that wasn't the point of that story. Does he really sound like a sober-minded Christian when he talks about things (often in contradicting ways) and now wants to create an adult entertainment company? Just saying we shouldn't determine heaven or hell for someone in the moment, but we should be considering the fruit.
Great song. Ive personally found it hard to stomach listening to AILD since Tims conviction. Yeah I get that he served his time but I can never get past the whole "what if he got away with it?" Scenario. How so many Christians would have beem praying and sending financial support for Tim while the entire time he was responsible. Outlandish i know but it bugs me.
I get it, it's not an easy pill to swallow. If there's true repentance in anyone's life it's going to take time to build back trust, but as Christians, we're also called to put away all bitterness while still being shrewd about his claims and present actions. A hard line to walk, but that's Christ's standard.
I absolutely love convictions ❤ you need to listen to their song stigmata, if you haven't already. This verse "i won't deny my Father's crown. So you can crucify me upside down. Crucify me upside down. I'll die for my Father's crown!"
