Tag: light records

For the remaining weeks of February, I’ll be focusing on African-American contributions to independent Christian music, in celebration of Black History Month. Both rock and roll in general, and Christian rock/indie/whatever music owe a huge debt to the African-American experience. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to overstate this. Andrae Crouch is one of the most influential Gospel artists of all time. In fact, he has often been known as the “father of modern gospel music.” And while the connection between traditional Gospel music and Christian indie/punk rock might not be obvious, it’s not as distinct as one might think.… Continued →

Depending on how you define the term, Resurrection Band was arguably the first Christian heavy metal band. While their debut album was released in 1978, their earliest demo recordings date back to as early as 1973. While many fans and critics will argue, “they’re not heavy metal, just hard rock,” this outlook unfortunately judges the past by current standards. Metal has moved on and splintered into a hundred different and more extreme subgenres. However, in the 1970s, their brand of bluesy hard rock would definitely have been considered heavy metal at the time–just as bands like Van Halen, Aerosmith, Kiss and others were.… Continued →