Nostalgia will make you do funny things. Speaking from a purely personal viewpoint, pure, unadulterated nostalgia will cause strange behavior, such as downloading (and subsequently listening to) such hindsight-tarnished nuggets as NOFX, Voodoo Glow Skulls, or even Weezer's first album. Such nostalgia will also cause you (read as: "me") to listen to the TOTALLY RAD FUCKING JESUS JAMS OF BARREN CROSS!
When I first encountered Barren Cross' 1986 Xtian opus Rock For The King in the back room of some Saint Vinnie's in downtown Eureka in the mid-90's, I was immediately blown away by not only their awesome haircuts and sweet blue-and-white spandex outfits (crucifixes and handcuffs? Kinky!), but their lyric sheet as well. Barren Cross love Jesus, to be sure, but their odd fixation on Jesus-as-substitute-for-weed is what REALLY caused me to fork over the 50 cents and bring this sucker home. This is a band unafraid to belt out such controversial phrases as "Better than pot, Jesus rocks / Come and believe!" or invite you to "Smoke on his love!"
The Thing posted some actually-pretty-awesome-and-not-ironic Xtian metal jams this morning (XINR), but from ongoing conversations in the comments section and elsewhere, it is apparent that our tastes diverge when the elements of cheese and silliness are introduced. I like corny, ridiculous metal. The Thing does not. Harbor no futile hopes about Barren Cross being an actual, substantial, talented band. They are silly as fuck. Sorry dude.
FUCK IT, WORSHIP JESUS.
(dl)
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8 comments:
man, you are all about weezer right now
Epicly weezing the juice, bro. Unapologetically.
man, I hate Barren Cross. I love a lot of white metal very dearly and see no contradiction to its parts. But Barren Cross are like exactly Iron Maiden with the most preachy lyrics possible. Fuck them.
"Killers of the Unborn
Lay her down, commence to drill
A primo murder, the legal kill
I am a child about to die
My mother does not hear my cry, no
(Chorus)
Killers of the unborn, killers
Killers of the unborn, stop the killing
Injection starts to work its way
I don't feel love, I just feel pain
I'm getting weaker, my poison blood
And death surrounds me like a flood
(Chorus)
The operation is over
I'm now in pieces in a garbage bag
Guilt will now take over
'Cause where is the relief you thought you had
The shame and tears she bears
The scar of guilt she is going to wear
But he can forgive her
If she gives her life to the saviour
No, no, they're gonna kill me
I don't want to die, just let me be
No, no, I feel the pain
I feel, I feel the pain, no."
Listening to Iron Maiden pretty much play this is bizarro world torture. Fuck em and their congregation.
LOL! Helm. We are laughing AT these misdirected idiots, not WITH them. If you don't want to be preached at, Christian cock rock miiiiiight not be the genre for you. Sure, an anti-abortion song as heavy-handed and atrocious as "Killers of the Unborn" might be rather painful to actually sit through/contemplate, but doesn't mocking our enemies actually strengthen our own ideals? I dunno. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to these awesome Arghoslent demos...
I love a lot of white metal for what it is, not against what it is. I hold no belief in any supreme being but the passion on display for a lot of christian metal overcomes the particular metaphysic nitpicks I might have. When I listen to Lordian Guard I do not think "lol, god doesn't exist" I think "I must try harder to be a good person in this life because after I melt away there will be nothing left of the half-assed shit I usually comfort myself with having done." Bill Tsamis' guitar lines are a resounding monument to everlasting beauty, and I need to do something like this before I die.
No, I don't think mocking the enemy strengthens one's own ideals at all. I think if anything it's a masochist tendency that reveals something very telling: wanting to be the enemy. That's what I get from people who mock Manowar yet listen to them and so on. Irony is a gateway to the real, un-ironic thing itself. It's a defense mechanism until someone can get close enough to the thing he supposedly 'hates' and just do it straight up.
In this case Barren Cross have ideals, right? They're not ideals I like and that's not why I find them insufferable, it's because they have no class and appeal on the lowest level of 'Iron maiden pop song + abortion argument = success at certain demographics'. I can practically hear their 'Christian rock' labelhead shaking their hand over this shit, it's awful, it has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with niche exploitation, playing to an audience and trying to win over stupids by giving them audio candy. Listen to that Barren Cross song, it's very catchy and well-sang. That's the disgusting thing.
http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7865-poptimist-33/ here's an article on something being ironic and slowly becoming what it is lampooning.
Or read 'stuff you will hate'.
Or watch The Colbert Report/Daily Show? I'm not sure that I'm 100% with you on this Helm, but I appreciate the obvious thought you've put into your argument. Following your logic, we all secretly want to be Juggalos? Republicans? I'm not sure I buy that.
Exactly, I bet these shows are watched by many earnest Republicans that can laugh at themselves but will not budge from their position in the least. The world needs to slow the fuck down and start meaning what it's saying or else soon it'll be comprised of idiots and ironically-pretending-to-be-idiots and that's no way to be.
We don't want to become Juggalos, but we do find something appealing in the camaraderie and support that they show for each other and their fuck you attitude towards outsiders. That's the enticing thing about them: idiots, but uncompromising idiots. This is the signal of a functional world-view (differentiate from positive: a function may not arrive to positive results, but it will arrive to *some* results, which is more than can be said about the mental masturbation us intelligents commonly engage in). For all their faults, they've set their life to a plan and they follow it to some logical conclusion while we sit here paralyzed by intellect and our wealth of choices.
Similarly, with Republicans, what attracts us to them is their capacity for simplemindedness, their square world-view in which things are simple and easy to follow and if you adhere to basic tenets 1 2 and 3 the result shall be profit and a place in heaven. We are too far gone to ever go back to being conservatives (although old age does strange things to the mind so let's not discount the possibility just yet) but there is a certain amount of awe in the face of determination, coherent Weltanschauung, simplicity and application.
It is the same with faith. I am drawn to white metal because these are people that BELIEVE in shit, and that's beautiful even if the ethics of it are ugly.
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