When Metal/Rock Went "Grunge"...

A friend and myself are trying to find all of the albums that Metal/Hard Rock/Rock bands did the switch back in '94-95 or so...we thought of

White Cross - Equilibrium
Whiteheart - Inside
Neon Cross - Torn
Holy Soldier - Promise Man
Petra - was it "No Doubt"?
Bride - Jesus Experience ?

I'm not sure I would include the Whiteheart and Petra discs, but I think you certainly have a case for the rest.
I kinda thought Neon Cross' "Torn" album was more a throw-back to the 70's sound than it was true "grunge". But having lived through most of the NW/Seattle grunge movement I gotta say it was a rather diverse sounding bunch of bands that got lumped into the "grunge" category so "Torn" probably wouldn't be much of a stretch.

You might almost say that Saint's "Perfect Life" album was a foray into the Garage rock & alternative experiment as well.

That only proves one thing.......... I don't like grunge

Equilibrium was the worst of the three later Whitecross albums
Whiteheart I only own one album so can't comment!
Neon Cross' album Torn was good, but not nearly as good as the screaming ST.
Holy Soldiers Promise Man I just couldn't get into at all. Both their other albums were great, but the 3rd just had no screaming vocals.
Petra's No Doubt was a good album, but far inferior to most of their previous stuff.
Bride's JE was my least favourite album by them (it used to be DROP, but that's gone up in my estimation!)

If 'you' like grunge then those albums would probably appeal to 'you' , but as for me I like it screaming and high pitched!

Bring it on

Someone

Please!

anyone?..............







Fundy

See I actually liked "grunge" but did not care for most of those albums. Not to sound like a snob but I think the best grunge actually came from the NW bands, not those established bands trying to ride the trend.

From that list above I only really liked Neon Cross' "Torn" & WhiteHeart's "Inside" (but I don't really consider W.H. to fit within the genre).

Most of those bands you mentioned took some portion of the alternative/grunge rock and assimilated it, but they were still firmly hard rock, just a more modern distillation of it. Grammatrain & Sometime Sunday - THOSE were grunge bands.

Even Poor Old Lu to some extent, since they were from up that way as well. Most of their stuff had a lighter feel to it, mostly alternative with a splash of grunge, but it was different for the Christian market.

MetalFRO wrote:

Most of those bands you mentioned took some portion of the alternative/grunge rock and assimilated it, but they were still firmly hard rock, just a more modern distillation of it. Grammatrain & Sometime Sunday - THOSE were grunge bands.

Agreed, and it just so happens that both Grammatrain and Sometime Sunday where NW bands (from Washington and Oregon).

I would also lump Stir in with that crowd of grunge bands

What you sez is true, I don't think WH's "Inside" sounded grungy and Petra's sounds more like a modern-at-the-time rock album, but that is what "reviewers" said at the time (that's how we've been finding most of these discs: by pouring thru old CCM Magazine, HM, 7ball and syndicates)...at least Carman never changed

I've always rather favored GS Megaphone myself (and Stir as already mentioned)

With the Whitecross record, that was an awesome alternative rock record. Too bad it just ticked most Rex era fans off. We had already suffered the loss of our favorite shredder, got a good rock record but without amazing leads (see "Unveiled"), and then got handed a disc that was NOT Whitecross at all. Had Scott released this under a new band name, it would have been so much better received. The Whitecross name should have died when Rex left.

Whiteheart did add some grunge elements to their music, but they were still Whiteheart. You can hear their experimentation, and they did it well. Unfortunately, the fans liked it so little that the band folded after this. Oh, it was guitarist Barry Graul (who was in Whitecross) that helped shape the new sound of Whiteheart. This is the same guitarist who played for Halo. He now plays with MercyMe.

As for the grunge scene:

Sometime Sunday
Grammatrain
GS Megaphone
Reflescent Tide
The Prayer Chain
Stir
Tragedy Ann

I've never heard of Stir, what is a good album to start with?

I thought (and still think) that Equilibrium is Whitecross' best album. While Rex did some outstanding guitar work on the early records, Scott's vocals were much too close to Stephen Pearcy's IMO. I never have understood the appeal of those early WC albums.

With Equilibrium, Scott was finally doing vocals that sounded more organic to me. It was like he was finally finding his own voice and not trying so hard to sound like Pearcy.

icon_red wrote:

I've never heard of Stir, what is a good album to start with?

Stir only had one album, "Broken Tongues". There was another Stir from Seattle who had 2 albums (self-titled and "Holy Dogs"), but they were a secular band. I never considered Stir to be a grunge band, though. There's some grunge/alternative in their sound, but they're primarily a more modern distillation of hard rock in my opinion. The album gets a bit of a bad rap among hard rock fans who don't like any "alternative" influences in their hard rock (usually the same folks who slag Holy Soldier's "Promise Man" album), but it's a solid album of hard rock. Not spectacular, but certainly not as bad as some make it out to be, mostly because it's not their preference.

I hated grunge when it came out. It was just so different and the lyrics in the secular bands was hard for me to understand. Even the christian grunge albums used a different lyric style. Now I go back and listen and I like some of the music and understand what the bands were trying to say. My favorite christian grunge album would be holy soldiers promise man. Whitecross did some cool albums also.

I'm sooo glad this is a bump and I don't have to try to reconstruct my opinion on Equilibrium...

Grunge =

bassdude wrote:

Grunge =

Hannibal, MO? Heh heh I live in New London, MO...I work at Kroger in Hannibal!

I stick by my first assesment. I liked many of the grunge bands, but the ones who seemed to do it best were the bands from the NW, and the groups who didn't try to change genres to fit with the times.

icon_red wrote:

bassdude wrote:

Grunge =

Hannibal, MO? Heh heh I live in New London, MO...I work at Kroger in Hannibal!

I bet we know each other......at least by reputation! PM on the way.