Generally when people hear the words “Christian Music” they think, naturally enough, of one of the established Christian music genres — the gospel choral music of James Cleveland; the bluegrass harmonies of Bill Monroe; the anodyne uplift of Amy Grant or the Winans.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of that, of course (and yes, I even have a space in my heart for Amy Grant.) But the range of Christian music isn’t bounded by such examples. Here, then, are four albums which demonstrate once and for all that Christians can be just as odd, or even odder, than their earnestly eclectic secular neighbors.
Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground
Anenoidal weirdo Gordan Gano played up his adolescent angst and played down his religious inclinations on most Violent Femmes releases — except for his second effort, 1984's aggressively bizarre Hallowed Ground. Starting off with a plunking tale of child murder and ending with a joyful plea for watery apocalypse, the album recasts the fire and brimstone of old timey country as manic, off-kilter stagger: it’s Christianity as bi-polar disorder. Nowhere is this clearer than on "Black Girls," a concupiscent vaudeville-meets-free-jazz paean to interracial affection, featuring a guest-spot from John Zorn’s Horns of Dilemma and the immortal lines “You know I love the lord of hosts/father son and the holy ghost/ I was so pleased to learn that he’s inside me/ In my time of trouble he will hide me….I dig the black girls!” Just like the squeaking saxophones and the bluegrass banjo, the cheerful lust and earnest faith exist side by side — angular, dissonant, incongruous, and perfect.
Frost Like Ashes - Tophet
Black metal is known for its willingness to take its devil worship to ridiculous extremes — like, for example, murder and church burning. But, you can’t have a dark without a light to stick it in, as Arlo Guthrie commented, and in this case that light is unblack metal — a sizable scene comprised of black metallers devoted to Christ. Among these bands, my hands-down favorite is Frost Like Ashes, whose 2005 full-length Tophet is one of the most demonic slabs of sonic aggression ever offered up to Jesus. Vocalist Azahel spits out his lyrics as if alternately trying to throttle the devil with his throat and diaphragm, while the music manages to be eclectic, old school, and fierce all at once. Even Slayer might be tempted to bend a knee after hearing “Shattered Gods,” which seems to encapsulate the entire history of metal, opening with a Black Sabbath doom motif sped up to thrash speeds, before the band adds black Wagnerian keyboard washes, death vocals, and a battering, relentless arrangement which keeps vomiting forth new punishing riffs and fiendish ideas through its entire six-minute length. Azahel’s laugh halfway through sounds like it’s been dragged bodily from the pit. Good has never sounded so evil.
Fejat Sejdic - Guardian Angel and Lost Lamb
Roma trumpeter and brass-band leader Fejat Sejdic is so poorly known in the U.S. that when I last tried to create a Wikipedia page for him it got deleted for insufficient notability. Nonetheless, he is one of the most famous and influential performers of traditional music in the former Yugoslavia, where he played for Marshal Tito among other luminaries. On the evidence of this 1988 recording, Tito was in luck. Sejdic’s trumpet playing is full, rich, and lyrical, and the chugging band background is something else — the record sounds like a collision between a flamenco player and a polka band. To Western ears, it’s both ridiculous and charming — and oddly affecting, too. The version of “Amazing Grace” (yes, that “Amazing Grace”) is goofy and childlike as the band oom-pahs along...but Sejdic’s trumpet, which gently takes and twists away with the melody, really seems to be soaring towards heaven. Not all the songs here are explicitly Christian, but several are. This includes the phenomenal “Lost Lamb,” which starts with three minutes of mesmerizing, nearly, unaccompanied trumpet, as Sejdic goes from the instruments keening heights to its eloquent, growling lows. The one downside is the recording, which breaks up in several places. Still, if you ever see this album, you should grab it - it’s not easy to find.
Various Artists - Saints’ Paradise: Trombone Shout Bands from the United House of Prayer
This 1999 Smithsonian Folkways Anthology is dedicated to the United House of Prayer, a church founded in the early 1900s by an African Portuguese immigrant named Charles Manuel Grace. Music in the United House of Prayer wasn’t performed by vocal or choral groups as in most other African-American churches of the day, but rather by bands composed of trombones. The feel is that of early jazz; upbeat, party music, unleashed on standards from “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” to the inevitable “When the Saints Go Marching In.” “Ease My Troubled Mind” slows down to a slightly more contemplative pace, but even there the swing is infectious. If, like me, you’re a sucker for the trombone’s distinctive, quacking charm, this disc is definitely a bit of heaven.
If that’s not enough to hold you, I’d also recommend the always surprising Daniellson Famile, Arhoolie’s collections of sacred steel guitar music...and, of course, Black Sabbath’s most explicitly Christian album, Master of Reality.
