| Musical Style: Metal/Hard Rock | Produced By: |
| Record Label: Retroactive | Country Of Origin: USA, New Zealand & Brazil |
| Year Released: 2020 | Artist Website: Bride |
| Tracks: 12 | Rating: 95% |
| Running Time: 55:31 |
Bride’s December of 2020 Retroactive Records sixteenth full-length album Here Is Your God is all about making its long-term fan base smile. In similar fashion as Stryper fans have been smiling over an illustrious four album run beginning with 2013 Angelic Warlord album of the year No More Hell To Pay but also including highly regarded follow up efforts Fallen (2015), God Damn Evil (2018) and Even The Devil Believes (2020). More specifically, how Deliverance fans also smiled in regards to the speed metal and thrash ‘return to form’ of 2017 comeback album The Subversive Kind.
No doubt meeting fan expectations plays a significant role in this regard but so does understanding what you do best. Bride, for instance is not shy about pushing its musical boundaries - noting how it has experimented with acoustic rock (Drop) modern rock (The Jesus Experience) and even rap metal (Fistful Of Bees) - but leaves little doubt it is in prime form within the metal and hard rock genres. Consider the groups 2018 fifteenth studio album Snake Eyes (also Retroactive), which as its namesake implies represents a throwback to the straightforward hard rock of iconic 1992 fifth album Snakes In The Playground.
Fittingly, Here Is Your God provides more of the same but in the overall heavier package. Whereas the Snake Eyes guitar sound derives from a hard rock basis, Here Is Your God finds Bride adding a metal edge akin to 2006’s Skin For Skin or its fledgling eighties material. That said, in no way does Bride forsake its venerated hard rock ways either in that Here Is Your God still provides strong facets of bluesy fortitude akin to Kinetic Faith (1991) and This Is It (2003) in addition to a hook and groove inclining not unlike Scarecrow Messiah (1994).
“Demon Speed” is first of two barnburners to open the album. This is one such track in which guitars cross the metal threshold, bristling and boiling as vocalist Dale Thompson adds an element of fury to his signature grainy vocal delivery and understated hooks rise above the surface. Lyric snippet:
Have you missed the Savior’s warning?
All of these things that turned your world upside down, wore as a thorny crown
No matter how low you have gone, my life has been to right the wrongs
We must live life so well that death is not afraid to take us
The worse thing you can imagine, going to get worse
Drowning inside our hearts, falling out of our skin
Never see the light inside
God knows the tears you’ve never cried
Albums title track preserves the tempestuous momentum, bordering on the provoking with a tenaciously chanted refrain repeated from the get go to go alongside verse section that abate (even if somewhat) as bluesy tinged guitars take hold. “Here Is Your God” otherwise sees soothing guitar harmonies trade off with brother Troy Thompson’s granular guitar leads instrumentally.
“My Own Time” takes Here Is Your God in a surprisingly melodic direction. With gracious guitar melodies to start, it deliberately drifts smoothly from the start as Dale lowers his register prior to affable but hard rocking guitars cutting in and further aggrandizing the momentous melody to prevail. I appreciate how Troy lends calmer elements of viola to cover the final seconds. Lyric snippet:
Madness of my infirmity rages against my insanity
I’m everything but a pleasant laugh
Better do something fast
East of Eden and far away
I’m an actor in a tragic play
Jesus pull me from the grave
No curtain calls on judgment day
If “The Unhallowed” is not my albums favorite track, it is a strong contender. It stresses a light progressiveness through use of Middle Eastern influenced sitar but otherwise proves a battering ram of a cut: rumbling guitar proclivity pummels through the almost spoken word verse sections on the way to the drubbing (but astutely memorable) refrain. I particularly revel in the lengthy instrumental fade out.
“In The End” is another choice cut. I sense a bit of a Live To Die meets Silence is Madness straight on metal thing going on, with snarling angst throughout and biting vocal niceties combining to lend added support for the curtly done hooks you will be challenged to rid of your mind. Aposan Alexandre stands out with his sophisticated drum rolls and fills. Lyric snippet:
The devil craves idleness, vanity and drunkenness in the morass and cushions of the abyss
Don’t make the truth meaningless
We’re the people of the wilderness
Disappearing in my solitude
Don’t you know the magnitude of the day that is to come
Things are so primitive
Jesus is definitive
But the world plays deaf and dumb
Punchy metal onslaught “Like I Never Was” opens to a spacey keyboard solo and spoke word delivery ahead of the hyper-accelerated groove to buffet its remaining span. Song batters and bashes rest of the way - I am drawn to the catchy charge in and out of the mix rhythm guitars - not elevating the highest melody but an essential track with its forceful power all the same.
The minute and a half instrumental opening to “Shine On You” morphs from acoustic guitar and docile feedback to a flowing up-tempo melodic guitar rhythm similar to Place Of Skulls track “Relentless” (off The Black Is Never Far). It proves its own song rest of the way, preserving the melodic sentiments to palpable bass and high-spirited leads with said inviting rhythm guitar returning to invigorate on periodic occasion. Final minute settles down in similar acoustic fashion. Lyric snippet:
Light of the world, there He stands
Light you lamp now, light it quick
Fill and oil and trim your wicks
No time for lies
Speak the truth and God’s love will shine on you
Graveyard expedition only dig up the dead
In the days of darkness nocturnal eyes see all
Don’t give yourself up to an endless night
Diversity defines “I Promise”, with the disquieting initiative to start giving way to a groovy-funky rhythm reminiscent to “Universe” (from This is It) that at a moments notice dives headfirst into the aggressive, too the point refrain. Back and forth and back and forth again between the lightened and elevated in near mind bending fashion with the lone interruption the extended instrumental section to see Troy light it up with his expansive lead guitar.
“What Will The End Be” personifies a driving, mid-paced plodder with a walloping low end - noting the manifest bass courtesy of Nenel Lucena - and bruising mine to rank among albums heaviest. Similar to “Like I Never Was”, it does not present with the type of hooks to draw you in at once (song requires several listens in which to grow on you) but rather defines for skirting the straightforward and no-nonsense. Lyric snippet:
The illustrated man
His life on display
His body was the canvas for a world enraged
He was painted in blood and pierced through
Sculpted with a whip until His bones showed through
I wanna be your crucifixion
Because I don’t deserve your sacrifice
Lush harmonies carry the opening moments to “Send Your Angels” but just when you are thinking it might be a ‘mellow’ song, buffeting guitars cut in and turn it into a heavy hitting bruiser rest of the way. Lone exception is the breakdown at the two-minute mark to impress of the melody to Kinetic Faith cut “Ever Fall In Love”. A joining of the rough and tumble and contrastingly genial might be the best way to describe things.
Album closes to two very strong cuts beginning with “Letter Of Light”. What we have is a melody harmony driven monster (not to mention candidate for best song title of the year), as verse sections pulsate to palpable, driven impetus and refrain upholds the elaborate form as the breathtaking remains. Intensified drums underscore the elongated instrumental run. Lyric snippet:
It’s time to understand
The night has no right to command
I read the Letters from the Light
In the daylight we see what we can do
Nothing can stop us now, that is the truth
If you are looking for proof, you are running with fools
Remember the Kingdom to come
God’s will be done
“Burning From Within” represents a throwback to “Heroes” (off Live To Die) with its seven and a half minute progressive metal form and similar chilling narration over eerie keyboards driven opening. As things peak a minute and a half in, darkly woven guitars and Dale’s unfathomable lower register blend in to build upon the prevailing disquiet aura. Yet, a genial side to the song detaches in the form of the unmistakable melody and intense instrumental harmonies allowing the song to hold up within its length. Overall, Bride successfully captures some magic of the past.
The best Bride album usually begins and ends with Snakes In The Playground, although Live To Die, Silence Is Madness, Kinetic Faith and latter albums such as Skin For Skin and Snake Eyes have their supporters. Repeat listen reveals to this reviewer that Here Is Your God deserves mention among such reversed names. It begins with songwriting in that there is such a wealth of quality material here - “Demon Speed”, “The Unhallowed”, “I Promise”, “Letter Of Light”, “Burning From Within”, etc - but you cannot discount the solid production not to mention manner in which brothers Thompson remain a force. The Snake Eyes rhythm section of Nenel Lucena and Aposan Alexandre lends further continuity. With the end to a very challenging 2020 around the corner, Here Is Your God is in a photo finish with Stryper’s Even The Devil Believes for album of the year.
Review by Andrew Rockwell
Track Listing: “Demon Speed” (3:38), “Here Is Your God” (4:18), “In My Own Time” (3:59), “The Unhallowed” (6:05), “In The End” (4:02), “Like I Never Was” (3:45), “Shine On You” (4:14), “I Promise” (4:59), “What Will The End Be” (3:42), “Send Your Angels” (4:27), “Letter Of Light” (4:50), “Burning From Within” (7:30)
Musicians
Dale Thompson - Lead Vocals
Troy Thompson – Guitars, Cello, Piano & Sitar
Nenel Lucena – Bass & Additional Guitars
Aposan Alexandre - Drums
