White Cross

[rexreed]

Glad to hear you are finally getting to enjoy Whitecross. I was a casual fan in high school- saw them once but I was more concerned with the girlfriend at the time- wish I had paid more attention to WC!

[Boray]

Disciple, I guess it was for you I posted it!!!

[executioner]

Start looking for more Bloodgood, Daniel Band, and early Guardian.

[Jonathan]

Mastedon, Rage of Angels, X-Sinner, Zion, Undercover, Holy Soldier, Red Sea, Jerusalem...etc

[Rocksoup]

I love the Album "In the Kingdom". They played some of the best blues/metal out there. I listen to stuff like "Good Enough" and "Tell Me the Time" and think to myself....too bad the day has come and gone where stuff like this was par for the course in the ccm market. Most of the stuff, especially on the radio is so musically sissy-fied it's rediculous. The Dez Dickerson produced albums, had some of the raunchiest, screaming Marshall guitar tones on the planet. There's big gaps to fill in the market. Too bad the people spending the $$ all want to hear 100 different bands play the exact same thing.

[brent]

White Cross was good. I was not a hard, hard-core fan. I thought that Christian rock/metal had an alternative to Eddie Van Halen in Rex Carroll and an alternative to Steven Pearcy in Scott Wenzel. Rex kind of looked like Stevie Ray Vaughn with that stringy hair and that hat, and probably has every bit as much soul in his fingers. I appreciate what they did for the genre and am glad they had a chance to get back together. The first King James album was really a top off to White Cross IMO. I loved that record when it came out. I could hear a little White Snake in it too.

[Rocksoup]

Unvieled had some good stuff on it. I can't remeber who played guitar on that but it didn't have the attitude of the older stuff. I never could get into Flytrap. Rex Carroll has a new album out with his new band that sounds pretty good. I think Mike Fegan is drumming on it. It's real biker-bar type of rock and roll from what I gather, not lyricaly, but musicaly. I ran across it on his FB page.

[rexreed]

If the only two albums you have from WC are without Rex then you should definitely check out High Gear and In the Kingdom. Not even close when it comes to guitar licks.

[executioner]

The gutiar licks in the first three albums were 10 times better than anything off of High Gear and In The Kingdom. Those two were good, but too commercial; they lost their grit.

[rexreed]

Not so sure the licks were any better than those found the title track for High Gear. I was listening to some of the tracks on the earlier material, and while I still love it, some of those songs are terrible sounding. Hammer and Nail has one of the best Carrol solos of all time but the low end on most of the album is seemingly non existent. Sometimes I would swear the drums sound out of tune! And I'm pretty sure they are electronic- how does that even happen?

You know what? The rerecorded album 1987 might be a good place to start. Faithful to the originals with better production. Yeah- that's going in the car today

[executioner]

I was merely talking about the gutiar licks not the overall production of the albums. I love the dark and gritty gutiar on the early works; In The Kingdom and High Gear was over polished and overproduced. Don't get me wrong I like those two also, but they just seemed what everyone else was doing 2 years before secular wise.

[executioner]

Since I hadn't listened to it in probably a few years, I went and listened to High Gear and in some ways came away with a different Outlook. My Love, Long Road to Walk, Without Your Love, and Gonna Keep On are my favorites. I still rate it a step below their previous efforts though.

[gman]

Ken Tamplin and shout had some good stuff.

Here's a whole hour from a recent concert in Germany.

[rexreed]

I realize that this thread is straying but that Ken Tamplin stuff from Germany sounds pretty good. As far as a I know Ken never toured near where I live, at least I never heard of him doing anything. I have always wondered how he would sound live since it seems as if he is the type of self producer that will record a few notes at a time till they are perfect. His vocals always sounded really layered and it would seem to me that reproducing the studio sound live would be tough. Winners or Losers is one of my favorite tracks and I'm glad to hear he includes it in his set list. TBH, I accidently discovered KT. Whitecross had a following in Houston, but hardly anyone that I knew that listened to Christian music was familiar with KT or Shout.

[bakersfieldpethead]

Equilibrium and Flytrap were awesome in their own right. But no there is a difference between the early stuff and the later stuff. Flytrap had Quinton Gibson on guitar, what's sad about that album is that was their last studio album and they had just auditioned drummers before the album so the drummer was new, that was the only album He did, then they called it quits around the One More Encore - Greatest Hits release. hmmm sounds familiar.

Funny thing too, Equilibrium was produced by former Imperials member Jimmy Lee Sloas