Quite a few new artists have made their way to my music library, and I haven't shared opinions on them yet. Christmas shoppers might appreciate this input.What They Say My Opinions
The new stuff to cover is: Atomic Opera, Alice Cooper's Dragontown, Bryan Duncan, Mercy Me, Mortification, PFR (Pray For Rain), and Third Day. This isn't going to be just my opinion. I'll be tapping on Barry Alphonso's The Billboard Guide to Contemporary Christian Music (Billboard Books, Oct 2002), and Mark Allan Powell's Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (Hendrickson Publishers, (Aug 02) --pretty current stuff.
- Atomic Opera: compares to King's X and Galactic Cowboys. Strong vocal harmonies not often found in heavy music, non-traditional instruments for rock similar to Jethro Tull's flute-use, progressive art-rock, heavy metal.
- Alice Cooper's Dragontown: explores "the dark recesses of damned humanity" (Powell, 196).
- Bryan Duncan: blue-eyed soul, R&B rooted, like James Brown and Smokey Robinson, Southern blues, Gospel, Danceable pop, sanctified whoopin' and hollerin'.
- Mercy Me: praise and worship, high-powered pop and alternative.
- Mortification: hard rock, metal fire and brimstone, feverish, ferocity, punk meets metal grindcore, per 2000 Phantom Tollbooth "living metal dinosaur", death metal, "plodding, unchanging tempo with virtually no melody" (Powell, 611), ugly, classic metal, "Those with a taste for harsh, hard rock found the band's gory imagery and lacerating sound pleasingly brutal." (Alphonso, 200).
- PFR: neo-Beatles, alternative-retro.
- Third Day: Southern earthiness to modern worship, blues rockers, sanctified ballads, Stonesish, backwoods preaching, late '60s pop-rock, down home flavor, Southern rock, Cat Stevens vocal sound; Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Creedence influenced, neo-Hootie.
- Atomic Opera: Great heavy metal with a dark tinge. Hard chugging bass, rhythm guitars and percussion without the growled vocals. Heavy, but quite pleasing to the ears. They try to downplay their Christianity (to reach the unsaved) so the message might be elusive --but it's really there!
- Alice Cooper's Dragontown: Typical Alice Cooper sound, but a fair amount heavier than Last Temptation. The cryptic Christianity makes Cooper's stuff a bit too borderline for me to buy him new, or to eagerly recommend. (I like my local Hastings' used CD selection!)
- Bryan Duncan: I bought him because of one song: "Mr. Bailey's Daughter." He's got a good fast, light sound, but it's not rock. It's the sort of stuff you'd imagine coming from a charismatic revival organist. It's a fun change, but I only claim to really like two or three songs on the CD (Anonymous Confessions of a Lunatic Friend). That CD is worth the buy, if only for "Mr. Bailey's Daughter".
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