| CD REVIEW Deliverance |
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Band : Deliverance One thing you can be certain of when an album comes out on the Retroactive label, is that that band’s members adhere to the Christian faith. And in one out of two cases, you’ll find you have to do with a re-issue of an album which has been a landmark in Christian Metal’s history! Such is certainly the case with Deliverance’s 1994 album River Disturbance! Back in the day when it was released (after a staggering 8-month recording process during which Deliverance mastermind, guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Jimmy P. Brown II kept adding little details during his first co-producing job...until the record let him know it had been long enough), the album garnered the kind of negative feedback from the band’s fans which one wouldn’t expect from the Christian Metal community! I mean, hate mail?, and there’s been actual threats about Deliverance better not play any of the songs off that “aweful” album when the band came play the (otherwize anonimous) writers’ towns, or else...etc! For Deliverance, things started in 1985 when Brown founded the outfit. The band made its recorded debut by contributing the track “Attack” to the 1987 California Metal compilation on Regency, but it took until 1989 before the band got signed to the Intense imprint and saw their self-titled debut album released. Not that the band’s Speed Metal at the time made any major waves in the Christian Metal community at the time! Things were different with 1990’s Weapons Of Warfare though (for which a video for the title track was released on MTV), thanks to the inclusion of some Thrash Metal elements. During the production of third album What A Joke (1991), the band went through its second line-up change since it was signed...and the album not doing as well as expected led to the second guitarist leaving (line-up changes would be a somewhat constant hinderance with this outfit, really). 1992 album Stay Of Execution (which followed the Intense Records Presents: Recorded Live, Vol.1, released earlier that year) would be the first album announcing a major sound change for the band, who were shifting their music towards a more Progressive side of Metal [it was also the first album which saw Brown in partnership with the production team of Gene Eugene (deceased) and Terry Scott Taylor]. Although many fans at the time were angered by the change of style, there’s others claiming that it was the best thing Deliverance had made until then! 1993’s Learn continued in that direction, and saw the introduction of bassist Manny Morales to the band (he would be the only one to remain in the line-up through several changes from then on). Now for River Disturbance, the band had singed a contract with Brainstorm Artists and got a recording budget which was five times the amount they’d ever gotten before...so no wonder Brown took to experimenting a little! Especially since Brown had entered the production with only two songs recorded in demo versions (óne of which would later become one of the bonus tracks on this re-issue), something which had never happened before. The band would go on to record/ release the 1995 album Camelot In Smithereens on Intense, but due to conflicts with their record companies in combination with the fact that Grunge had severaly taken over the market, the band folded and “disappeared” until 2001, when they released their final studio album Assimilation before splitting up completely! After Deliverance, Brown started work on an Electro-Industrial Gothic act called Fearful Symmetry (the only member in that group being keyboardist Corin Jae Scott) which delivered two albums to date: 2002’s This Sad Veil Of Tears, and 2005’s A Loss Of Balance. Brown has been getting requests about re-releasing the River Of Disturbance album since the turn of the century. Not surprising, since although the album díd sell over 16,000 copies, its release was hindered by the fact that back in the day the distribution company affiliated to Brainstorm Artists had decided to stop working with the label only three days before the fysical release of the album...the label then relying on word of mouth by the fans to get the album sold. Something which kinda backfired, as history tells us! In fact, he’s had several requests for permission to record a couple of covers of songs off the album from other recording artists. Being of an earlier generation which kinda looked down on all the kids which see the Internet as their salvation, Brown was eventually persuaded to make a little research on the web about the album, and he was truly amazed by the positive reactions he found! So, in 2005 he finally agreed to start work on the re-issue, not only remastering the 9 songs that were on the original album, but also finishing work on two other tracks (“I Thought” and “On The Fritz”) that were already recorded back then, but which the team was unable to giove a decent mix to include it on the album. On top, he’s reworked the album opening track “Belltown” in the style of Fearful Symmetry, giving it that band’s typical Electro-Industrial Gothic touch! As there was still some space left on the disc (already being filled up to 61 minutes), you also get a 12-minute monologue by Brown, in which some explanations (from which I took some of the info) are given surrounding Deliverance’s old days and the situations surrounding the re-issue. Some more info on the album first: musicians were Brown (all lead & backing vocals, rhythm & lead guitar, keyboards, and 12-string acoustic guitar), Manny Morales (bass – the 5-string & fretless variety), and Jeff Mason (drums & percussion), but there was also some additional help by one Jonathan Maddux (playing lead & rhythm guitar and “noise” guitar, and doin’ some “guitar treatments”), Jon Knox (drums & percussion; had played with White Heart and Adam Again, and had already worked with the band on the Learn album...would go on to work with the likes of Rage Against The Machine and No Doubt), and Gene Eugene (piano on the album’s wonderfully beautiful ballad “You Still Smile”). In those days, Rap music and Hip Hop was starting to come into the hit-lists, and with “A Liittle Sleep” the River Disturbance album has a song also including Rapped vocals. On top of which Brown’s voice occasionally sounds like that of his biggest idol, David Bowie! In other words, this is truly an album which has a timeless quality. During the recordings, Brown and Terry Taylor had often spoken about The Beatles’ music, and how the Revolver albumcontained some of their finest moments. At a certain moment, Taylorsaid, “This is your Revolver”, and for sure River Disturbance is an album to be proud of! Fans of the band will be pleased to learn that Deliverance came back into action in late 2006 [with a line-up including Brown, the aforementioned Corin Jae Scott on keyboards, guitarist Mike Phillips (whom had already been in the band before), bassist Tim Kronyak, and drummer Mike Reed], releasing the As Above, So Below album in April of 2007. Its release was followed by a even more re-issues of Deliverance material (starting with a double disc expanded edition of 2001’s Assimilation, followed by the re-issue of the Greetings Of Death, Etc compilation of demos, originally issued in 2001 under the Magdalene imprint on a limited edition of only 1,000 copies which sold out almmost immediately...and a re-issue of the 2000 Magdalene compilation Back In The Day: The First Four Years, now re-titled as simply The First Four Years, again containing several raw demos). Taking on the adopted name of Braun, Brown had already started another band by the name Jupiter VI, releasing the 2006 album Back From Mars (more about that elsewhere in the reviews section...that album’s up next, really). Right, at this point I would direct you to a site where you can listen to music off the album, but the only songs by the band that can be found at myspace.com/heavymetaldeliverance, come off the Weapons Of Our Warfare, What A Joke, and As Above, So Below albums! Regretfully, this IS a re-issue (and one which even happened a year ago) so no rating is the policy of this website in such a case. Still, and with a naughty wink, I’ll let you know that River Disturbance deserves a fat 92/100 in my book! Tony. |