Jerusalem
In His Majesty's Service
Reviewed by Doug Van Pelt
It's here! It's here. What a way to start off the new year! Talk about powerful! Now you can have part of a Jerusalem concert in your home, car or blasted through your Walkman headphones. The title track follows the concert introduction - "Please welcome to America, Jerusalem!" This song starts off the record with a surging synthesizer intro, but it doesn't linger for too long. The guitar rips right in with a ferocious rhythm and the keyboard joins in to propell the song into a fast-paced rocker. After a few runs of the melody, Ulf starts projecting his voice through the speakers. "Run fast, run fast. Don't let the messenger rest." This song lets you know that you're not dealing with a wimpy band. Jerusalem is solid. Praise God for a band that has powerful music. You get tired just listening to this album. Some music has the quality to increase your heart rate and draw your emotions to a peak level. This first song does all that for me. This album can duke it out with any of Ronnie James Dio's best stuff. The distortion effects used by Ulf are just right. It is amazing to realize that Ulf is playing all the guitar parts and handling all the lead vocals as well. "From the Bottom of Our Heart" is the next song, and Ulf and the boys jump right into it after the first number. Besides the totally powerful music, Jerusalem has another terrific asset: they are hearing from God. It shows in what they say and in their lyrics. "From the Bottom of Our Heart" is a plea for compassion from the church. It serves as a powerful rebuke to us as we ignore the hurting people around us. "All they do is cry All they know is hunger But the pain will stay 'Till the day you obey." Too many Christians are "Still waiting and wondering For a reason. But if love is master You have to go. A cymbal is sounding." We need to hear what God is saying through these guys. This song features some virtuoso keyboard playing that adds a great flair to the fast pace. This time we get a short breather between songs and then off we go with "I'm Waiting for You." This is off their last album, along with "Read Between the Lines" and "Can't Stop Us Now." Like most live performances, the songs are faster than the studio versions. The first two songs are new, along with "The Tide," which finishes side one. Ulf used some good analogies with the ocean to depict the compelling force of God's love and the assurance of His promise to return. The keyboards are used a lot in this song, but it doesn't take away from the heavy sound; rather, it adds to it. Dan Tibell plays keyboards for a heavy metal band and not a pop band. The keys here add a richness to the overall sound. "Ashes in Our Hands" is one of the jewels from the Warrior album (which is probably their best studio album). The studio version of this song seems to have more of an impact because the pauses are longer between the change-ups in tempo. It isn't a bad performance though, in fact, it's good. It's nice to hear the guitar in its natural form: coming out of loud speakers with no studio adulterations. "Can't Stop Us Now" definitely benefits from the increased speed of a live performance. This song is our rhythm as the body of Christ. "Nothing's gonna stop us, we're on the attack! No matter what comes or which wind blows We will be the winners when the final storie's told." After this song Ulf takes some time to exhort the body: "I'm a soldier. You are a soldier. You are a warrior in the army of God. So stand up and take your sword, take your shield and start fighting and don't sit down." Then they tear into "Time," which has only been released on Refuge Record's Front Row compilation album. Considering the amount of time Ulf usually spends talking in concert, we expected more talking on this album. This is no problem at all, though. "What he (Ulf) said is just dripping with the Holy Spirit," says Carey Womack, who is the pastor of a Baptist church, the lead singer of a Christian punk rock band called "One Bad Pig," and a subscriber to Heaven's Metal. "Man of the World" ends the album with a classic marching cadence. This should drain every last drop of energy out of you if you've listened to the album straight through. Ulf speaks out after the song and exhorts us again - "Mister Christian, there's not much time!!" On a scale from one to ten, this album tops the scales with a big 10. Buy it and play it loud the first time, and louder the second. And louder, and louder...