Precious Death
Los Angeles, California7 reviews across 4 releases
Precious Death was a Los Angeles Christian metal band formed in the late 1980s. The group had spent more than four years together without a vocalist when Christopher Scott joined, and its early music combined funk-metal groove with heavy guitar and a pronounced low end. The 1991 demo Our Stinkin' Demo used clear professional recording rather than murky cassette sonics; its hooks were carried by gang vocals over audible bass, making the band unusually accessible for the style. Southpaw, the 1994 Metro One debut, widened the approach without losing the groove, using Scott's melodic vocals against heavier guitar and an acoustic closing ballad. The songs could move from Christian reflections to an argument between brothers. By If You Must, progressive structures had absorbed hardcore force, grunge-like riffing, and subdued passages.
In 1996, Christopher Scott and David Bishop formed Blackball as Precious Death's original run came to an end. Blackball released Super Heavy Dreamscape in 1996 and Hope in 1997, with Scott as the principal songwriter; Bishop played on the first album. Precious Death was no longer active by 1999. Metro One issued Hardest Hits that year, selecting fourteen songs from the band's three studio releases and adding a computer-readable Bible to the disc. The collection treated the group as finished rather than previewing new material. Scott continued with Blackball before moving through later projects including Death by Numbers and Knightfall. Roger Sampson subsequently played drums in Once Dead.
4 releases reviewed
Our Stinkin' Demo
If You Must
Southpaw
Hardest Hits