Photos and Review by Dave Kasiorek
It was a packed Sunday night at the Craft House filled with eager metal heads for the mighty Metal Church. Metal Church has been to the burgh a few times since 1986 but, if there’s one thing for sure it’s that in 2023 Metal Church has come to melt your face off with the classics. Kicking off the set was the classic thrasher “Ton of Bricks” followed by the heavy crunch of “Start the Fire”. A few songs into the set Metal Church unleashed the “Gods of Wrath” and “Watch the Children Pray” which to this day stand up with the best of the best as far as metal ballads are concerned. Half way through the set the band was introduced and Kurdt Vanderhoof (Founding member, guitarist) took the mic and reminded the crowd of the tragedy the band has gone through in recent years – one of which was the death of vocalist Mike Howe – and how the band is still going strong despite the hard times. The band and crowd welcomed new vocalist and metal church fan Marc Lopes with open arms as he reminisced about his 15 year old self one day becoming the front man of the band he loves. Metal Church recently released a new album “Congregation of Annihilation” so it was fitting to play a few tracks off of that record and they fit in perfectly with the classics as well. The show ended how their career started with the first and second tracks off of their self titled debut album “Beyond the Black” and “Metal Church”. If you are a true metal head and like to thrash and head bang to the purest of heavy metal then you have to go see and listen to Metal Church. If you are not familiar with Metal Church then you must grab some head phones, turn those speakers up loud and blast these classics like they deserve to be heard.
