A few months ago I wrote a blog post telling of my love for music and how that love was started.  I got started on the Christian Metal scene quite early, all the while ignoring the mainstream metal movement for the most part.

When I came to my senses years later, I realized how much the Christian metallers (is that a word?) ripped off the original artists such as Queensryche, Ratt, Metallica and AC/DC.  Maybe ripped off is too strong of words, but the Christian metal bands definitely borrowed similar sounds and styles.  That was quite alright with me back in the day.  As a young Christian, I was taught that Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were devil worshippers and that I should not listen to them.  But bands like Saint and Barren Cross, which sounded almost exactly as the aforementioned bands, were ok to listen to.

Anyways, I thought it might be fun to spend a few blog posts comparing some of the mainstream metal acts to their Christian counterparts.

First up is Queensryche versus Sacred Warrior versus Recon.

I would have to say that Queensryche is one of those bands whose entire discography is kept on my iPod at all times.  They are premiere musicians and I love every one of their albums.  They were pretty popular in the mid 80’s, so of course their sound would be “borrowed” by other bands.

One such band that was heavily influenced by Queensryche was the band Sacred Warrior.  They released four studio albums, all of which were very good.  Click here to read a good review of each album.

Recon - Ancient of Days.  Released in 1990.

Recon only has the one album to their name, but what an album!  One can very quickly see the influence of Queensryche in almost every note.  Click here for more information.

This is a new addition to the WordPress.com blogs.  Thought it would be fun to add a poll just because I can!

Goodness this is funny! Jim is capping on BSG and totally frustrates Dwight! I know that Dwight was going to tell him that BSG is on hiatus until 2009 (like Lost) and it is a “re-imagined remake”! I sure felt for Dwight this time!

This movie stinks worse than a three day old dog turd on the floor!  I love kid movies, and I love animal movies (Babe anyone?), but this movie is just horrible.  The voice acting is stilted and uninspired, the cgi is bad and the plotline is just plain old boring.  The audience might have laughed one time, but that was it.

Save your money and go see Wall-E instead!  But if you need to see the trailer, here it is below:

Tesla released their 8th full studio release this week, entitled Forever More.  If you’ve never heard of Tesla, you honestly have been missing out on life!  Tesla is one of those bands that really gets it; they love the music that they play and from what I hear about people who know them, they are still down to earth guys.  (They are from Sacramento, CA which is 2 hours from where I live, so yeah, with that whole 6 degrees of separation thing, I know people that know ‘em!)

Forever More is a great album.  The songs are all solid and the album is very well produced.  Unfortunately, the entire album didn’t automatically grab me the way their earlier releases did.  After a few more listens, I’m sure I’ll love it as much as I love Tesla’s back catalog.

Below is Tesla’s latest video for the song I Wanna Live.

Just for fun, I thought I’d post some videos of Tesla’s days of glory.

Modern Day Cowboy

Love Song

Hang Tough

Edison’s Medicine

Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out)

Gettin’ Better

Little Suzi

It was a dark and stormy night….

Nah, not really but I’ve always wanted to start a blog like that.  Actually, it was a bright and sunny day as I read through my various music blogs.  I ran across this:

It was a review from Metal Reviews, a metal review site that I happen to agree with quite a bit.  So when I saw that it was given a 97 out of 100, I new I had to check it out. (click on the link above to read the great review)  Of course I love the music, even though I don’t understand what they are singing about.

I honestly didn’t read the review very carefully, so I had no idea they were a Hispanic metal band that sung in Spanish.  I have a friend that loves the kind of operatic symphonic metal that Dragonfly plays, so I sent him the information.  He in return sends me a video from a band called Adgar.  They are from Spain and can really tear it up!  Imagine Judas Priest singing in Spanish!  Below is the video:

I’m just bummed that I can’t find Adgar’s new album, Tiempos de Cambio, anywhere!

So, if you’re in the mood for some great heavy metal in a language you might not understand, check out Dragonfly and Adgar!

..

House of Heroes released a new album this week and it is awesome!  House of Heroes plays music that is very creative and the mix of this CD is incredible.  A few reviews I’ve seen label them an “indie” band, but I have to disagree.  They just play some great rock and roll.

So I got my wife the new iPhone 3G for her birthday.  She’s on it all the time and she is always wanting more storage space, so I thought it’d be a great idea.

But what do I do with her “old” iPhone?  We passed it down to my daughter to use as an iPod Touch.  The first gen iPhone could still be used without a sim card, as long as you had the 2.02 version of software.  It is a great gadget, and the wi-fi internet connection works great.

Today I was prompted to install the 2.1 update on Bekah’s iPod Touch (the 1st gen iPhone).  I updated like a good boy and BAM! her iPod no worky!  Said I had to install a valid sim card and activate the phone via iTunes!  Boo!

I did a quick Google search on how to downgrade the phone back to the 2.02 software found promptly found out that Apple made sure you couldn’t downgrade.  Thanks a bunch Steve!

Fortunately for me, I found this website on how to “jailbreak” the 2.1 software.  Turns out us Mac users are a lucky bunch!  This program does everything in one step, whereas windoze users have to jump through some major hoops to jailbreak their phones.  I ran the software and POOF! the iPhone-turned-iPod Touch was working great!  Yay for me!

Our Corpse Destroyed has finally released their new album, Strength to Strength.  For those of you who might not have heard of OCD, you sure have missed out on some phenomenal punk music.

I originally thought that the new CD wasn’t coming out until October.  I was browsing around iTunes and actually found it.

It looks like iTunes thought it would be released in October as well!  The “buy album” button worked and poof! I now own the new OCD album.

The video below plays some music from the first album as well as the second album.  The sound is different enough to be noticed.

OCD’s first album, Avenge Your City, is pure punk goodness.  Big bass lines, catchy barking background vocals, short songs that pack a huge punch - these are all on the first CD.

Strength to Strength hit me more as a metal album.  The big bass lines are way more subdued and the guitar is prominent.  The gang vocals are there, but just not as pronounced.  One song even has a mini guitar solo!  This is a great album, but I was taken aback at the sound change.  I will need to listen to this one a few more times before I absolutely love it.

I had the chance to see OCD about a year and a half ago when they came to Merced.  The put on a phenomenal show, packed with high energy and exuberance.  All the guys were super nice.  I took some pictures and made this crappy slideshow: