Betrayal

Item: The Passing
Author: Michael Klein

The Passing

(1993)

Reviewed by Michael Klein

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Label Wonderland RecordsThe LighthouseFebruary 1994

hardcore industrial speed metal thrash metal

The Passing is the latest offering from the thrash/speed metal band Betrayal. This is a challenging format for a band of Christians to carry out successfully. Combining screaming guitars, pounding drums, and harsh yelling vocals in a manner that glorifies God is not easily accomplished. Yet, in this release, I feel Betrayal does it quite well.

Technically, the guitar work is amazing in its variety. Rather than relying on the standard thrashing riffs repeating throughout each song, Marcus N. Colon and Rob McCue prove that they know their instruments. When the song calls for it, they are quite capable of being melodious, as well as creating the "wall of sound" typically associated with this genre. The bassist, Jeff Lain, does a good job of keeping up with the changing rhythms. Leading those changes, drummer Jeff Mason carefully sets a tempo and then is able to convey the intensity of each song by varying the pattern of the beats throughout the song.

What can be the most challenging aspect of this form of music is the vocals. The volume of the music requires the words to be more shouted than sung. This can lead to making every lyric sound the same, both contextually and emotionally. Lead vocalist Chris Ackerman manages to add enough variety to convey different messages. Guiding the whole project as producer is Caesar, who seems to have held the whole project to a consistently good level of quality.

The message is bleak but still positive. The tendency with this type of music is for bands to use minor chords, with a lot of yelling about how bad everything is. Betrayal adds to that some of the positives of Christianity. Still, with song titles like "Carnival of Madness," "Forest of Horrors," and "Race of Hypocrisy," it's clear that this band is out to challenge Christians to improve their surroundings, rather than be complacent. I would not hesitate to give this release to any non-Christian head-bangers, particularly if they do not believe there are any good Christian metal bands.