Conceived in Fire - Living Sacrifice

An admirable effort int eh Christian Metal scene, Conceived in Fire doesn't completely break the template set forth by the Christian Metal scene, but it's certainly something new.

The bass on this album is loud and clear, it doesn't get the same treatment as a lead guitar, but it has an excellent sense of groove and holds things together well. On some tracks its louder than others, on the louder tracks the muddiness to the bass recording becomes more obvious. As with most every other album, its bass guitar, people just don't seem to respect it and as a result it gets pushed pretty far down in things.

The guitar isn't full fledged Death Metal riffing, being scaled back a bit and focusing more on groove and melody than flat out sonic violence (like Dying Fetus or Immolation). The distortion seems to be dialed back and bit and the guitars don't seem to be drop tuned quite as much as normal. More importantly, the riffs don't have any real punch to them, they sound pleasing to the ear, but they aren't really angry, violent riffs like one would hope for (going along with the groove aspect of Christian Metal). Living Sacrifice makes up for this with excellent melody, and this indescribable... thing on the song "subtle alliance" that sounds really cool, but I don't have a words for it, I'm sure someone else does. 

The drums are drums, played proficiently with a very deep sound that really adds to the heaviness of things, almost sounding like a guitar. Occasionally it even sounds like a kettle drum or something to that effect is in the background. Good stuff.

The vocals are generic death growls performed with mild success. Lance I believe his name is, has neither great depth nor power to his voice. He kept the lyrics relatively not-preachy, which is a plus for me, it feels less like im having jesus forced down my throat than just enjoying music.

Conceived in Fire may not be terribly heavy, but it has nice speed and groove, as well as melody to it, with proficiency in everything but the vocals, which are just a bit below average. The songs all sound different and fresh, and there are some really amazing moments, but everything else sounds the slightest bit forced like they were trying for heaviness, and didn't quite succeed.

7.75/10