The Best Christian Apocalyptic Metal Album of 2010

W.A.S.P.
Babylon
(Demolition)

W.A.S.P.’s apocalyptic Christian album Babylon is better than any other new rock I’ve heard this year.

“You are old,” the hipsters shrug, “and also you really like Stryper.”  I do not deny it.  I also admit to loving Holy Soldier, Whitecross, and a large collection of songs about Babylon.  Eccentricities on the table, I assure you that I find this state of affairs–in which I love W.A.S.P.’s new apocalyptic Christian rock album–extremely unlikely, for many reasons, of increasing complexity:

Reason 1:  W.A.S.P. SUCK, RIGHT?
That’s what I’d always assumed.  Encyclopedic metal chronicler Martin Popoff rates their albums either 5 or 7 out of 10, and this is a man who admires the “subtle sophistication” of Accept’s Balls to the Wall.  A metal-loving editor once dismissed their infamous ’84 hit “Animal,” saying its controversy made people overlook its suckiness.  (My counterexample was Steve Taylor’s “I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good.”)  Since “Animal” WILL CORRUPT YOU, I cannot, in good conscience, advise you to look it up on Youtube, no matter how many search results (450) you’ll find.  But rest assured, it does indeed SUCK.  (Like a beast.)

Reason 2:  W.A.S.P. AREN’T EXACTLY CHRISTIAN ROCK, RIGHT?
Tipper Gore hated “Animal,” so she pushed Parental Advisory labels for explicit music.  (According to Jack Feerick, those labels only ensured that musicians would make much more explicit music.)  W.A.S.P. had more in store.  If you are what you title your songs, W.A.S.P. leader Blackie Lawless wasn’t just an Animal:  he was also the King of Sodom and Gomorrah making a Deal With the Devil;  a Harder, Faster Ballcrusher with Dirty Balls; a Cocaine Cowboy organizing a Saturday Night Cockfight; a Hellion in search of Helldorado, destined to wind up in Hell for Eternity.  He wanted to Kill Your Pretty Face, possibly inside the Arena of Pleasure.  His ’94 Babylon song, “Sunset and Babylon,” extolled L.A.’s debauched nexus, the Rainbow Bar and Grill.  “Come on down and we’ll get crude,” promised a seemingly washed-up Blackie.

As Anglican theologian Montgomery Gentry has taught us, some people change.  So!  Blackie is now blessed to view Babylon from the other side.  Where once he wallowed in a sea of drink, he now wallows in a sea of blood and other kickass imagery from the book of Revelation.  Raised a fundamentalist Christian, Blackie has retired “Animal” from his concerts and, at least in his lyrics, reclaimed the faith of his fathers.  God bless him.  I say so generally, but also because:

Reason 3:  YOU DON’T GENERALLY IMPROVE WHEN YOU “GO CCM.”
Dylan didn’t.  Did Barry McGuire?  (Maybe; Bullfrogs and Butterflies sits about equal with “Eve of Destruction” in my book.)  Who else IS there–Mark Farner?  (I’ll go with NOT AN IMPROVEMENT.)  Maybe in the comments we can list all the musicians who improved when they went CCM.  In any case, it doesn’t happen real often; we’re more likely to hear that artists feel “liberated” and create their best work when they go secular.

Blackie, on the other hand, seems energized by Revelation’s apocalyptic imagery, and the performances are energized too.  All nine songs are worth listening to for Blackie’s guitar solos alone.  These things are virtuosic but loose, tonal but endlessly inventive–and you could say the same about the rest of the band.  The thrilling guitar/bass duet that opens “Live To Die Another Day” sounds uncannily close to Husker Du.  And when Blackie sings, “Six hundred six six, and seven seals/A pale rider and his horses sing,” Mike Dupke’s drums gallop along underneath.  Dupke, who got his start with John Mellencamp, is a monster throughout.  Good thing these guys can play, because:

Reason 4:  BLACKIE LAWLESS’S TAKE ON CHRISTIANITY ISN’T EXACTLY “THOUGHTFUL.”
Partly it’s the genre’s fault.  You can read Revelation’s apocalyptic imagery with dread, apathy, or Christian hope; but if you hear apocalypse in a metal song, it’s mostly gonna sound AWESOME.  Sort of like all those Roland Emmerich disaster-porn movies.  For instance, in the song “Seas of Fire,” Blackie keeps singing “Say hello to a fiery sea!” and it’s the coolest thing ever.  Someday when I’m ACTUALLY greeting a fiery sea, I’ll probably be a little more formal.  (“How do you do?”)

(True parenthetical story:  When I was at a Cub Scout event as a boy, a mysterious scout named Travis came up to me and started sharing his interpretation of the End Times.  The highlight was a nightmarish lake of fire that I wouldn’t want to jump into, but I’d have to if I wanted to be saved.  My father, a non-millennialist Lutheran pastor, sternly rebuked Travis and threatened to inform his father of this scriptural misinterpretation, which Travis had doubtless learned from his father in the first place.  I went on to win the Pinewood Derby, and Travis was devoured by a Beast, so there.)

Throughout Babylon, Blackie is less a preacher than some eschatological Drill Sergeant.  He’s particularly obsessed with knees, and whether we should be On Them or Off Them.  Fully four songs deal with the plight of our knees, leading me to eschatologically hope that the pale rider brings some Band-Aids.  Spiritually, the album tends toward a macho triumphalism that’s not uncommon for metal, even the Christian variety.

And then (sigh) there’s the video for “Babylon’s Burning.”  The band rocks, and behind them flickers an ominous filmic parade of totalitarian leaders past and present.  These leaders symbolize the modern political Babylon that’s opposed to God’s Kingdom.  Let’s see here, we’ve got Hitler, Stalin, Ahmadinejad, Putin, and–good heavens, is that Obama???  Yes indeed; as it turns out, the new improved Blackie Lawless is on record comparing Obama to Hitler, and, um, denigrating him for being a socialist Robin Hood. (Didn’t we used to LIKE Robin Hood?)  Blackie’s video comes dangerously close to making a good point about the nature of Empire and how it impedes the Kingdom.  Unfortunately, by neglecting to include any other current rich-world leaders in his slide show, Blackie also neglects cogent thought.  His “point” misses Niebuhr and settles for being knee-jerk.

Reason 5:  W.A.S.P. SHOULD’VE PEAKED IN, LIKE, 1984.
Look:  even if they’d always been a top-drawer Christian metal band, what are the odds that W.A.S.P. would still release great music after 25 years?

Maybe pretty good.  This far into his career, Blackie knows all the tricks.  He knows how to play an amazing solo, how to pile up chords during chaotic outros, when to stop singing so he can rap about Beasts–all the stuff that makes rock songs breathe.  He knows how to hire great musicians and lead them through blazing covers of Deep Purple and Chuck Berry.  He’s learned that rock is usually more exciting when it’s not fussy about its ideas.

A theology prof once pointed out that whenever we recite the Lord’s Prayer, we’re preparing for the great eschatological brouhaha.  He noted that we shouldn’t feel bad if our minds wander while we’re praying.  After all, when the Kingdom comes we’ll have PLENTY to think about.  When we finally say hello to a fiery sea, the ability to recite the Lord’s Prayer without thinking will be a blessing.

In a sense, that’s what W.A.S.P.’s chops allow them to do.  They could pound this stuff out in their sleep, and on Babylon they pound like their souls depend on it.