My exposure to music wasn’t shy of anything abnormal, but I will digress because yes my musical taste is anything of the ordinary. I think what first got me into heavy music was nothing other than POD, Payable on Death. They were my actual first exposure to heavy music. And I liked it, because they knew the balance of having hip hop incorporated into metal music. And it didn’t seem gimmicky. It was an expression of hate reflected by the fact that, yes ALL people can enjoy and make music together unified. That’s besides the point, but my sister and myself did indeed get into a car accident while listening to “bullet the blue sky”, and that was one hell of a scenario.
Anyways back to the music. I started to get into this hard and angry kinds of sounds, because for me it was a
reflection of the hate that I had for myself and my body because my dad belligerently made it first focus that the end of the world was neigh! and Armageddon is coming and you better have your shit straight because its going to be a miserable and painful experience. This reverberated echoes of my dad using a sledgehammer to a Pearl Jam cassette tape, while we have our friends over to watch the madness.
I got so entirely caught up in so much hate and frustration because of this benevolence and domestic barbaric excuse for an eternity scared me shitless.
And this was when I learned about Zao, Living Sacrifice and Embodyment. This kind of noise intrigued me. And without derailment or detail I got pushed in full force to hardcore and metal, thrash death and black metal. There was unequivocally a stalemate and I made it my passion to worship this music. I think one of my first favorites was Overcome, they made the most angry and hate filled music with a message about God and living like Christ.
This of course brings me to the development of the newly named band Indwelling who played a very straight forward barbaric and chaotic Death Metal. All the while retaining that same groove and harmony of their hardcore roots.
From this rabbit trail I will have nestled myself at the holy grail of all Christian death metal and that is the earliest incarnation of the behemoth known to man as Embodyment. This was some of the most disgusting and vitriol rage ever expressed and be it lyrics that glorify the theistic Christ.
I remember personally dissecting that CD because of the horrid sound samples on the track Apocalypse of the Suffering, it was an actual account of some real demonic shit. All together this, was my unequivocal all together tried and true royal stamp of approval being the most raw and real death metal all the while having this Christian pretext made it my absolute favorite and treasured possession growing up. So yes my own personal opinion this is the epitome of Christian death metal. All of their contents from the earliest demos is on the 1993-1996 CD.
