Symphonic metal is a cross-generic style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars of metal with different elements of orchestral classical music, such as symphonic instruments, choirs and sometimes a full orchestra, or just keyboard orchestration.
Atomic Opera is an American hard rock band from Houston, Texas. Their style blends progressive rock, art rock, metal, medieval influences, and eastern music.
Step Up to the Microphone is the seventh studio album by Christian pop rock band Newsboys, released in 1998 through Star Song Communications. It was the Newsboys' first album following the departure of lead singer John James in 1997, with Peter Furler and Phil Joel subsequently sharing lead vocal duties.
Travail was an American, Christian nu metal/metalcore band based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in Texas. Fronted by Matt Leslie, it had an intense following at Club 412, a local church-sponsored lounge and music venue located in southwest Fort Worth.
Poor Old Lu was a pioneering Christian alternative rock band based in the American Northwest. The band experimented with a variety of sounds and genres, particularly grunge, funk and psychedelic rock. The band consisted of Scott Hunter (vocals), Jesse Sprinkle (drums), Aaron Sprinkle (guitar), and Nick Barber (bass). Hunter was the lyricist who wrote on philosophical, metaphorical, and spiritually oriented topics. Common themes in the lyrics include introspective struggles with identity and spirituality, struggles with a superficial, secular, and modern society, and hope for life abundant. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music calls the band "One of the most accomplished and creative Christian bands of the '90s".
All the Hype That Money Can Buy is the third studio album by Five Iron Frenzy, released on April 25, 2000, by Five Minute Walk, under their SaraBellum imprint, with distribution from Warner Bros. Records.
The Halo Friendlies were an American all-female pop punk band from Long Beach, California. After snatching up a guitar in a thrift shop while on her first date with then-boyfriend now-husband Matt Wignall of Havalina/Matt Death and the New Intellectuals, Judita Wignall made the decision to start a band. Originally featuring Wignall on lead vocals and guitar, Cheryl Hecht on guitar, Natalie Bolanos on bass guitar, Tafida Allen on drums, and Deanna Moody on percussion on their 1998 self-titled debut, by 1999's Acid Wash, Hecht had dropped out of the project. She was then replaced by Ginger Reyes, who not only began sharing lead vocals with Wignall, but also took up bass guitar, allowing Bolanos to switch to lead guitar. In 2000 the Halo Friendlies replaced Moody with Christina Hock (Theobald). Theobald/Hock, however, was replaced shortly before the band's first sweep of the United Kingdom in 2003 by Claudia Rossi.
Live & In the Can was the first live album released by Delirious? in 1996, and was packaged in a tin can. It was re-released in 2012 as part of the band's 20th Anniversary Cutting Edge Years boxed set.
Dear Ephesus was an American Christian alternative rock band from Orlando, Florida. They were voted third-favorite new group of 1997 by HM Magazine readers, and went on to release two albums. The band broke up at the end of the 1990s.
The Electrics are a Celtic rock band from Dumbarton, Scotland. They formed in 1988 when former Infrapenny members Sammy Horner and Paul Baird (guitar) asked drummer Dave McArthur and sax/keyboard player Allan Hewitt to play a gig at Glasgow's Impact Festival. The band released a self-financed cassette album, Views in Blues, in 1989. Following this recording the band evolved a celtic rock sound, heavily influenced by The Waterboys and The Pogues. Subsequent recordings included Vision and Dreams (1990) which was distributed by Word Records, and Big Silent World (1993), on Germany's Pila Music label.
Let It Go is the sixth studio album from heavy metal band Galactic Cowboys. It was released on June 20, 2000.
Speakeasy is the third full-length album by Christian rock band Stavesacre. It was the band's final studio album to be released on Tooth & Nail Records. The band would later re-record "Keep Waiting", "Gold and Silver" and "Rivers Underneath" for the Collective compilation album, also released through Tooth & Nail.
Echo Hollow was an American Christian metal band founded by former Tourniquet members Guy Ritter and Gary Lenaire in 1996. Echo Hollow released two studio albums, Diet of Worms in 1998 and Superficial Intelligence in 2004.
Squad Five-O is an American punk rock band from Savannah, Georgia no longer formally touring or recording, but rather only performing occasional weekend concerts. Like their initial ska-punk stylings, their name was derived from a cross between the television shows Hawaii Five-O and The Mod Squad. Between 1997 and 2006 the band grew lyrically and in popularity, and also shifted its style significantly. Over the course of their career they moved from a small indie Christian label to the major label Capitol Records and released five albums in the process.
Dimensions is the third album by the Christian progressive thrash metal band Believer, released in 1993 on both Roadrunner Records and R.E.X. Records. The album's last song, "Trilogy of Knowledge", is split into four separate parts and tells of the life of Jesus Christ. The lyrics recount events from the Bible, and include opera vocals, orchestral instruments, acoustic guitars, distorted guitars, and more. Although the album was critically lauded, the band disbanded the following year, but reformed in 2005.
Mortal was a Christian industrial/dance band fronted by Jerome Fontamillas and Jyro Xhan. Both members went on to found the alternative rock group Fold Zandura, and for a time were members of both bands simultaneously. The band is known for its lyrical intelligence, incorporating advanced theology with what has been billed as "Industrial Praise and Worship." According to CCM Magazine "Mortal has had a much greater influence... on industrial music than its modest output would suggest."
Eric Clayton is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and producer, best known for his work in the influential symphonic gothic metal group Saviour Machine which he formed with his brother Jeff Clayton in 1989. Eric Clayton is notable for his deep baritone operatic vocals, and is known for his theatrical live performances and dark, peculiar appearances and masks.
Saviour Machine I is the 1993 debut album of the American metal band Saviour Machine. In 2010, HM Magazine ranked it #72 on the Top 100 Christian metal albums of all-time list.
Morella's Forest was a band from Dayton, Ohio which formed in 1992. They released three albums on Tooth and Nail Records and one with an independent label. Their signature sound is noise pop or space music comparable to Starflyer 59 or the Breeders.
Lust Control is a Christian thrash punk band, originally formed in 1988. They are known for their explicit lyrical content, which is devoted to matters of sexual purity and sin, including abstinence, masturbation, pornography, sex ed, and related topics. For their unwavering views on sexual purity, CCM magazine has called Lust Control "the Josh McDowell of the Christian rock world." Musically they have been likened to The Ramones or The Dead Milkmen. The band formed as a joke and was not meant for long term exposure, which has led some to refer to it as a Christian version of Spinal Tap. Lust Control received the title of "The Worst Christian Band of the Decade" for the 1990s from HM.
