CROSSFORCE - ROCK UNTIL THE FINAL DAY

One of the greatest injustices in Christian Metal has finally been corrected. Crossforce, that classic 80’s metal band from the San Francisco bay area finally has an official CD release, not only is it official it’s as dynamic as anything from in that era. The fact that a band could be passed over because of appearance while their musical output was superior to so many others is beyond me.

Whether it’s the melodic metal of Tomorrow Will Come and Out of the Darkness to the driving metal of The Call and Our Father, this CD entitled Rock Until the Final Day just flat out CRANKS! You see what you have here is a compilation of two demo’s that the put together back in the mid 80’s. One of those demos was a six song affair that was commercially available and contained some great melodic metal ala Def Leppard, Queen or Thin Lizzy.

The songs which filled the original 1986 demo were Tomorrow Will Come, Our Father, Smoke Filled Room ( a true ballad with such emotion that is truly heartfelt), Out of the Darkness, Ready n Waiting and the title track for this collection Rock Until the Final Day. The original demo had only 500 copies produced and sold out very quickly.

The balance of the material is from a live in the studio session for Frontline Records that had never been available before. Recorded in late 1987 with seven more songs that sizzle from beginning to end, Stompin' in the Streets, The Call (a galloping piece of whimsy that sails with a phenomenal guitar solo), Heaven’s Door ( a strong piece of metal with a fabulous chorus that will grab hold of you and dig in deep), It’s Your Life, Wait and See (while a slightly unorthodox song structure, make no mistake how hard this song cooks!), The One Who Loves You, and finally Weeping World.

A special live version of Rock Until the Final Day appears at the end of this disc which just captured so much of the Crossforce energy. An essential part of the package if you ask me. The guitar playing of Phil Castillo is tremendous throughout with the obvious ode to Randy Rhodes and Jake E. Lee. Lead vocalist Tony Crider makes it very evident that they should’ve been signed as his songwriting is tremendous. Bass player Jeff Hudson and the previously mentioned Castillo made their own contributions in this area as well.

These are demo tracks so the usual studio polish hasn’t been applied, but I found no reason why that would hamper one’s enjoyment of this material. That’s how strong this stuff is if you ask me. It should be noted that the highly esteemed J Powell at Steinhaus provide a stellar mastering job which as allowed the original recordings to sound even better than before.

Roxx Records has put together quite the package for this release as well. The first 100 discs came with a bonus disc which contained live tracks from a Crossforce show that appear no where else. The bonus disc also contained material from Tony Crider and Phil Castillo’s next band entitled Mercy. There is also a fantastic 16 page color booklet full of photo’s, band and press recollections. Bill from Roxx has indicated to me that he felt this was the best booklet he’d ever put together. A total of 500 discs were pressed and that is all that there will be.


If you’re a fan of 80’s metal this is a disc you must own. Great music and great lyrics always make a classic package.


9 axes

CRUCIBLE DIVINE - COMMITMENT

Crucible Divine has released their debut album entitled Commitment. Hailing from Oklahoma Crucible Divine is actually the brainchild of guitar player Raymond Christie. He invited several friends from previous bands to contribute to this release.

Clint Glazer from Eyewitness provides the vocals, Brandon Lopes from Broken Flesh offers his drumming skills, and Kevin Wale delivers on lead guitar and shares the rhythm guitar duties with Ray Christie. In addition Wale and Christie played the bass tracks throughout. Michele Laymon provides the lead vocal on the song Let You Reign, a female vocal which stands out in stark contrast to Glazer’s gritty delivery throughout the rest of the album.

Musically Crucible Divine is an amalgam of different styles. One moment they deliver a strong heavy metal song in Woe to You; yet they offer a melodic 80’s pop metal sound on tracks like Won’t Let Go and Commitment. As you move deeper into the album praise elements stand forth with songs such as Let You Reign and Tell Me. The latter is actually more of a Bon Jovi styled rock ballad circa 1988.

For myself, this sort of scatter shot approach of musical styles drives me crazy. It reminds of some of those early 80’s Rez Band albums where I didn’t know if they were a pop band, new wave band, blues band or rock band. In a similar vein Stryper adopted this style of 2-3 heavy songs, 2-3 poppy songs, 2 ballads ect. It is with much frustration that I would like maybe 30-40% of an album and ditch the rest.

The songs here aren’t bad songs, but they simply aren’t consistent in style. When I buy an album I would hope to hear a consistent style throughout. That’s a personal preference; it would be like hearing Stryper’s song All of Me and hoping the rest of the album is like that. What would you do when you came to More Than a Man or The Way?

A solid production template is evident with clean and crisp tones throughout. Plenty of separation and depth allows the instruments their own space in the mix.

I found most of the songs to be a bit more worthy than memorable. That has nothing to do with style but with strength. A good or great song sticks in the brain after the album is done. That was a factor I didn’t find here, strong effort but the payoff was a bit lacking.

6 axes