With Blood Comes CleansingThese crusaders come from the dirty south of Auburn, AL. They formed in mid-2005, and during that time cut a 6 song demo that got into the hands of Blood and Ink which in turn led to this 10 track debut full length.
You know this is going to be a heavy Christian album when the title of the album is "Golgotha" which is the English name given to the hill in Jerusalem where Jesus was believed to be crucified. Anyhow, these guys play a bludgeoning style of death metal influenced metalcore with vocals that are extremely similar to the Between The Buried and Me's front man.
Ah, I'll probably come of sounding like an atheist, even though I'm not. But this stuff was too much Jesus this and that, Jesus give me strength. This is what the Knights of Templar would be listening to pump them up before the Crusades. "Persecution"—"I seek the face of Jesus Christ, in a world where death's existence is what surrounds. And I watch as they strip us of our beliefs and we let ourselves be over taken by our enemies. At the presence of God Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. He is Lord. Persecution, blamed for my faith. The wrath of evil poured out in these last days. This war will not end. Hold fast to your faith."
The production on this one was decent but there were some things I would've preferred done differently. The guitars sounded good for the most part, good tone for the tremolo picking and some solid crunch. The drums were really way too low in the mix, especially the bass drum which had no definition whatsoever. The bass was almost non-existent from a tonal standpoint, you could hear it faintly in the background. Those two things in my eyes hindered this release from really crushing. The vocals were handled good though, they weren't too high or low and no annoying echoing.
I'm actually really liking this albums layout. It has a sinister looking mountain, tying into the whole "Golgotha" theme. What's really cool though is they made sure to incorporate the "mythical" skull into the mountain. The death-metal band logo in the center of the front cover looks cool as shit, I'm always a sucker for good death metal logos. The inside of the booklet is decent, nothing great but decent. It features the colors of the front and back cover with the all of the lyrics displayed in a slanted fashion. I don't want to poke fun at a persons religious beliefs, but god damn their was so much Jesus thanking in the thank you's that it made me nauseous.
Rating: 3/5
Songs Worthy of Replay: Fearless Before Opposition (cool gang vocals and some nice harmonics) and Bring Out Your Dead (they should've used the sound clip from Monty Pythons "Holy Grail")
Thesis: Even though I don't think death-metal and Christianity should ever be paired together, this album was pretty damn crushing. But the lyrics were too over the top with the Jesus stuff for my liking, but I will say if you are Christian and love Jesus this is probably one of the best albums you can listen to.