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Heavy metal. When thought of it brings to mind great big bearded men eating children in the name of Satan. whereas now, it can conjure up thoughts of great big bearded men eating subway sandwiches and praying to Jesus Christ (both at the same time, maybe?). Welcome to the increasing market for Christian heavy metal. It seems like an odd mixture (like mixing broken glass with ice-cream, giving a delicious yet horrific experience!), but this music fan is not surprised at all.

Christian music has always taken the form of well-dressed and mannered middle-aged men with an acoustic guitar at church services, and this has not really been the outlet most of todays youth would want their views expressed in. It's like having someone play Rage Against The Machine on the mandolin: Good message, wrong outlet. And now, to get back on track with todays culture, Christian music has been blended with every genre imaginable simply because todays youth are making music in their own preferred style and genre but with their personal beliefs expressed within it.

This writer however is more concerned with the term "Christian heavy metal". We don't add an extra term before the genre to describe what the artist believes or sings about in most terms, so why do we do it with religious music? for example; we do not call James Blunt "i-lost-my-girlfriend Pop" do we? even as an Atheist i am baffled by this idea of creating a different term simply because of what is being expressed by the singer, and the term "Christian metal" is a corporate one, and not self-stamped on by most bands.

so i would say this to the rise in Christian metal: We are probably only starting to notice that bands have religious convictions in ares like these and so place the term "Christian" before the genre they inhabit (rock, metal, pop, etc) which looks as is this type of music is just cropping up when it has in-fact been around since the 1980's in bands like "Saint" and "Leviticus" and has steadily evolved as guitar distortion became more ear-wrecking and vocals became more like bowel movements. Beliefs find there way into many forms of expression. And this mode of expression, no matter how obscure it sounds to some, is simply our youth using todays tools and styles as an outlet for what they believe. And why shouldn't they? and why should we question such an approach to their musical style? we shouldn't. That would destroy the essence of music.

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