Favorite songs on "Human Sacrifice":

1. I Love Hating Evil
2. Burn
3. Beheaded
4. Mulligan's Stew
5. White Throne
6. Human Sacrifice


all of them are good though.

Vengeance Rising - The Boyzone of Christian extreme metal.

They still ROCKED though, and created AMAZING music!

Stick around guys, I will have something written for Once dead tonight.

I guess i can understand why this band has such a dedicated following among Christian metal fans. But for a slob like me, who hardly had heard of them before joining this board, i have to admit that hearing them was a huge dissapointment.
Do those of you who love this band, think you would like them just as much if you heard them for the first time today and had no idea they were a christian band?

[quote="Olafsto"]I guess i can understand why this band has such a dedicated following among Christian metal fans. But for a slob like me, who hardly had heard of them before joining this board, i have to admit that hearing them was a huge dissapointment.
Do those of you who love this band, think you would like them just as much if you heard them for the first time today and had no idea they were a christian band?[/quote]

Thats pretty much my story man, I discovered the band in 2007. I had no previous conections with the band at all. I discovered them through youtube at school because my home computer was still on dial-up at the time, I was searching for Mortification videos and came across vengeance and I loved the songs I heard. No sentimetal values previously, didnt know anything about them besides youtube making them look related to mortification. I mean I wasnt even born until the second album came out so I dont believe the "you had to be their for it" thing. I just think VR is another band that alot of people like and alot of people dislike, just like any other band.

I know for a fact I would like them today simply because of my preference for harsh/death metal style vocals. Which was probably the first thing that drew me in. Never heard a guy "sing" like that before. Also the relentless soloing WHILE Roger was screaming totally blew me away. It was like a solo feast in every song. I had never heard vocals over the top of soloing.

I would ask a similar question to people who discredit Christian metal. If you didn't know they were a Christian band, would you still dislike them so much? Amazes me how people give evil lyrics the nod no matter how extreme. Totally hypocritical.

I will be the first to admit that my love for Vengeance Rising may be clouded by nostalgia. I don't know to be honest if I heard them for the first time today if I'd feel the same way about them.

In fact, I probably wouldn't. Simply because I used to love that style much more back then. I still love all those early thrash bands I was into at the time. But I notice (apart from more original sounding stuff like 3 Inches of Blood and Skeletonwitch) that I'm not really at all into the newer thrash bands. Power metal is more my thing nowadays.

So, perhaps it's true that I like Vengeance Rising so much "because I was there". I was a part of that whole early Christian metal experience. But regardless, I like them. But I can understand those who do not.

VENGEANCE RISING Once dead 1990

Roger Martinez-vocals
Roger Dale Martin-bass
Larry Farkas-guitars
Doug Thieme-guitars
Glen Mancaruso-drums


1.Warfare
2.Can't get out
3.Cut into pieces
4.Frontal Lobotomy
5.Herod's violent death
6.The whipping post
7.The wrath to come
8.Space truckin'
9.Out of the will
10.Arise
11.Into the abyss
12.Among the dead
13.Interuption


Once dead was my very first introduction to VR. My first REAL christian metal band was Mortification and thru Morty I discovered Vengeance and their album once dead...I was blown away I could not believe there was a whole other scene I never realized existed in terms of thrash metal. I was heavy into thrash but I had a commonality with Vengeance and that was one of the things that turned me on to them. At the time all I heard as far as christian metal was concerned, was metalcore and lame pseudo hardcore. This album was such a breath of fresh air as I was trying to get away from all that mainstream sh!t. So, upon ordering a copy for 13 dollars off amazon I made a routine to check the mail after coming home from school everyday until it arrived. It was going on a couple weeks and it still hadnt shown up and I was getting a little livid because I wanted to hear it so badly. I remember telling my mom I hope it didnt get lost in the mail and she was like Chris, chill the hell out, it came in today. I went straight to my room jammed that CD all night! I listened to this album nonstop for weeks after that night, I even played the album on my student radio hour, one time me and this other girl were the only ones running the station one monday night and it was supposed to be the AM playlist but I scratched most the songs off and played "cant get out" instead of whatever was supposed to come next. I get a call about mid-song from the station owner saying I needed to go back to the AM playlist...well high school junior Stend didnt go back to the playlist and played beheaded off human sacrifice instead...needless to say the blood curdling yelling at the end of that track didnt go over very well and I was banned from making playlists for a week...hahahah! Getting this album lead to me getting into Deliverance, Ultimatum, and Seventh angels "lament for the weary" which was the next album I purchased. Human sacrifice may be my favorate VR album, but once dead had the most impact on my life out of all the VR albums.



The music on this album is pretty much the same as Human sacrifice, a little better production and songwriting. You gotta dig the thrashed out version of Deep purples "space truckin". Favorate tracks: Cant get out, into the abyss.

Great album! I don't like it quite as much as "Human Sacrifice" or "Destruction Comes", but like I said before - none of their albums were bad.

This is a really good album. Very innovative with all the blues and time signatures to it. It was certainly more technical than it's predecessor.

I saw them on tour with this album. Larry Farkas' guitar caught on fire during their set! It was scary!!!

I may be in the minority on this one, but Once Dead disappointed me. It's an OK album, not great. Something is lacking on this one. The production is very sterile - probably because it was recorded at Mixing Lab A/B, the default studio for almost all releases on Frontline/Intense records. I never liked the sounds that come out of those studios. Maybe Glen can elaborate on the Mixing lab, but I am guessing it was a crappy studio.

I remember seeing an ad for this album in Metal Maniacs magazine when it came out. I thought that was kinda cool cuz at the time the Christian metal labels didn't normally pimp their stuff in "regular" metal magazines, they mainly stuck to the ones that covered the Christian circuit exclusively. I was like "Cool, that dude's got a Deliverance shirt on!" Haha.

About ten years ago I was rooting thru a box of tapes at a flea market and came across ONCE DEAD. I was about to buy it just for gits and shiggles until I opened the cassette case and saw a totally different tape inside it. I rooted thru the rest of the tapes in the bin trying to find that damn ONCE DEAD tape so I could put it in the right case and buy it, but never came across it, so I threw it back. Therefore I have never heard this album to this very day.

After track 5 I zone out. And my ears hurt, as the big steely treble grates and grates, and I'm not a picky production person. But those first 5, great stuff. I would also count 'Into the Abyss' but I feel like the last quarter of it slows it down..

Don't own any VR albums from here on out, but I gotta say, the Deep Purple cover SUCKS.

On the strength of the first album I was first in line to buy the second when it was released. I picked up a copy and laughed at the cover. Not sure what was so funny about it, but at the time I found it humorous. (I know I have a weird sense of humor.) I didn't have a CD player in my car at that time, so I couldn't wait to get home to check it out. Get home, rip off the cellophane, popped the CD. in and BAM! "Our Father who art in heaven, hollowed by thy name. . .," came the growly voice over the thumping bass, before the actual song started. From that point on I treated my ears to one of the most pummeling experiences I had ever had. KILLER THRASH DISC! If you claim to like thrash and don't own this, you do not know what you are missing. "Warfare," "Can't Get Out," and "Cut Into Pieces" just don't let up, the speed and aggression matching or even surpassing the likes of Dark Angel or Death. (and that's saying a lot!) "The Whipping Post" and "Into the Abyss" are two epic speed metal songs. I was privileged to see Vengeance Rising on this tour and they pulled off both these technical songs perfectly while simultaneously doing windmills with their hair. "Space Truck'in" is a humorous rendition of the Deep Purple classic. My copy is autographed by Roger Martinez (vocals), Glenn Mancaruso (drums) and Larry Farcas (guitars). (I have a video bootleg of Extol doing "Warfare.") Step Cousin covered "Can't Get Out" on their "Experiments In Sound" CD.

Here is a bizarre story that happened during the tour for this album. I met the band on their tour in support of this disc and spent several hours locked inside of a club chatting with Roger Martinez. The band was scheduled to play the Sunshine Theater in Albuquerque with the Moshketeers opening the show. A local radio show called G-Rock had sponsored the show. However, on their way from their gig the night before, their van broke down. They didn't finally make it to the club until close to 1 AM. By the time they got there some of the fans had left, but many had stayed to watch a handful of local bands that played to fill in the time. (Combat Faith was one of the bands I remember.) By the time they got their equipment set up and Vengeance finally took the stage, they only had time to play about four songs. (One of which was a new song that was to be recorded for the next album, but never was.) Afterwards I stuck around to help the band break down and clear their equipment from the stage. In the meantime, the owner of the club decided he wanted 15% of the band's merchandise table sales and claimed he had a right to it. However, nothing in the band's contract stated this, so it became a big issue. The club owner locked us all in, waved a gun around, would not allow the band to take their equipment out of the club and called the police. It took several hours to clear up the issue, but in the meantime I got to spend the wee hours of the morning talking with Roger Martinez. I didn't hear all that happened with the situation, but in the end the club owner didn't get any of the band's table sales.'