Reviewed by Peter John Willoughby

Well it's finally happened; there is now a Christian horror punk band. Grave Robber have drawn heavily on The Misfits and added elements of early era The Damned and the theatricals of GWAR, Slipknot and Lordi. What else would you expect from Wretched (vokills and shovel), Nameless (guitar and vokills), Maggot (bass and vokills) and Dr Cadaver (doom tubs and vokills). The musical styles are gothic hard rock with a healthy dash of punk and metal. The vocals are a tuneful bellow that sounds like a cross between Johnny Cash and Joey Ramone. Also they are visually shocking with their horrific looking costumes and rotting corpses in the artwork. In all this comic book horror the band somehow include a solid Christian message. In "Reanimator" the lyrics state "Spent three days in the bowels of Hell/Snatched the keys from the devil himself/Rolled the stone and conquered the grave/Demons tremble at his name" whilst "I Wanna Kill You Over And Over Again" has the chorus "The old man in me must die/Bring it on, bring it on/I will terminate, exterminate/Bring it on, bring it on/I will eliminate you from Earth" about how our faith calls upon us to put to death our old way of life and follow Christ. The album ends an industrial remix of "Rigor Mortis" by Angel of the mainstream metal band, Dope, and gives the classic rock ballad "Love Hurts" a thorough mauling.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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