Our Corpse Destroyed
Avenge Your City
Hairball 8
It’s so easy to make a generic punk album, and so very difficult to explain the thin line between catchy melodic, and the genre’s candy-coated pop brothers. When the vocals are layered beneath sneers, and the guitar parts are repetitive 3- and 4-chord power chops that follow predictable lines of melody, a band can very easily slip between the cracks in the fragile foundation of “punk” and be one more sad casualty in a long line of bands that have tried and failed.
Our Corpse Destroyed are not such a band. Avenge Your City is packed tight with short anthemic bursts of dirty club funk… until on the third listen I begin to catch lyrical lines that make me curl my eyebrow and furrow my brow.
“The Lord is my healer, my shelter, and my rock” – from “Complusion.”
“He had you in mind when they crucified him / This was done for you” – from “Crucify Me.”
“Wasted Youth, wasted youth/ You are the children of God but what did you do?/ You’ve fallen fast, fallen hard, no excuses anymore… stand up and fight cause you’re still saved”- from “Youth of the Apocalypse.”
Such a shame. This band had me with their music, but lost me with their words. I know, I know; I’m completely biased and changing my opinion about a band after realizing that they are “Christian Punk” is not fair, but guess what? It’s my opinion, and my review, and I say thumbs down to Christians who feel the need to use what originated as a rebellious, independently-minded genre of music to preach their message to kids who just want to rock!
Christian Punks are like Gay Republicans; complete and total oxymorons.
Hairball 8: http://www.hairball8.com
