Rez - Innocent Blood (1989)

My review of Rez’s 20 Years Live got me into a little bit of trouble. See, I called Rez a heavy metal band. And hooo-boy did I hear it from the metalheads. Rez is apparently not a metal band. But when you’re introduced to Rez in the late 80s after their brief hiatus, you’re gonna understand where I’m coming from. And no such album exemplifies their lean towards metal as their 1989 release Innocent Blood.

In fact, if I had a T-shirt of this album back in the day, it would have fit right in with the rest of my schoolmates’ Guns N’ Roses/ Black Sabbath/ Metallica/ Motley Crue/ et al. t-shirts. I mean afterall, I already had the jean jacket with Christian rock buttons and the Stryper patch on the back, stonewashed jeans and a mullet. But by this time, Stryper had unfortunately become a bit of a laughing stock among many high schoolers for their spandex and girly looks (surprisingly, it wasn’t thier Christian message).

But Rez (aka Resurrection Band, Rez Band) on the other hand, was on top of their game not only musically, but they were also a band that pulled no punches. For example, some might rightly say the album cover is a sight one would not want to see while browsing Christian bookstore shelves, and the T-shirt having fit in with the secular bands of the time is just another reason why Christian rock was too worldly and of the devil. But it was their ability to genuinely express the realities of life in a world that a lot of church people didn’t understand, and offer hope to a degenerate world that made them able to reach those both inside and outside the four walls of Christendom. When you read the story in the liner notes of why they chose the particular image and how it ties in with the album title, it makes you appreaciate where they’re coming from even more–which is the inner city of Chicago (where they also have a ministry called JPUSA).

Their music on this album, therefore, expresses that honesty and sorrow with song titles such as “Altar of Pain,” “80,000 Underground,” “Fiend or Foul,” “Child of the Blues,” and “Laughing Man.” These songs are played with a sonic heaviness (for the time) infused with old-school blues. But the band gives the audience hope in Christ with Wendy’s testimonial, “Right on Time,” the absolutely perfect cover of The Who’s “Bargain,” and the gut-wrenching 7-minute long slow-blues burn of Glenn’s hauntingly beautiful, “Where Roses Grow.”

If you’re an old-school rocker who is unfamiliar with this album, or you’re like me and still trying to convert the classics onto an old-fashioned hardcopy CD; the band just re-released this gem with new/old inside-cover photos and whatnot.