Metal Riot

Only a few months into 2017, METAL CHURCH has already announced a Classic Live album, and has released a new music video for an updated version of their classic “Fake Healer” – originally on their Blessing In Disguise album. This new version is a duet featuring Queensryche singer Todd La Torre, and is already on my list as a potential single of the year. With all this going on with the METAL CHURCH guys, I felt it was the perfect time to dig one of their albums out from the vault. It wasn’t too difficult to pick an album either, and I’ll explain why next.

METAL CHURCH fans tend to immediately go to the Mike Howe or the David Wayne eras, and I love the hell out of both for different reasons, but I need to become the Matrix meme and ask “,What if I told you there was a ten year era that is getting criminally overlooked”?

In 2004, METAL CHURCH returned after a several year absence. The Weight Of The World was their first studio album since 1999, the year that also gave us Limp Bizkit and the great chipmunk fire of Woodstock 99. The Weight Of The World also introduced us to new METAL CHURCH singer Ronny Munroe, who gave us a total of 4 albums for the Church.

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When I got the initial news that Ronny Munroe was out of METAL CHURCH, I was blown away. “That’s it, the band is done again! How long do I have to wait for them to come back?” I was screaming at my computer screen upon reading the news. The guys had a history of announcing a singer has left and leave us fans “Hanging In The Balance” (see what I did there?) as we waited for them to announce a new singer and come back with a vengeance. After Hanging In The Balance, singer Mike Howe left the band and literally dropped off the face of the earth for years.

6 years later, singer David Wayne had returned to the band to record the Masterpiece album, which was awesome, but then he was out shortly after. David Wayne did release an album shortly after named David Wayne’s Metal Church, which was great, but it didn’t have the same feeling. I would recommend you check it out though. Wayne’s departure meant leaving us without any new tunes from METAL CHURCH for another 5 years until the band came back with new singer Ronny Munroe and they gave us the Weight Of The World album which has been one of my personal favorite metal albums from my teen years. I recall memorizing that album within days of its release and drove some of my bandmates at the time nuts with my constant singing.

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