From the Vault Review: Royal Anguish – Shocking the Priest
The story of Royal Anguish is a tale of two bands. In the 90’s, Royal Anguish played a frantic kind of classic death metal, but by the 2000’s, the band had morphed into a full-on beauty and the beast style gothic/death metal hybrid, replete with the beckoning female vocalist, piano work and all the other trappings of the style. While the later material is a bit corny for me, their early death metal material is worth checking out. Here, I’ll be taking a closer look at their 1993 demo, Shocking the Priest.
Spoiler alert – I’m pretty sure very little shocks priests; at least, I’m pretty sure they’ve heard it all in confessions and are well aware that there is “nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9). I’m sure Royal Anguish aren’t exactly referring to that however; from what I can tell, it’s more of a song criticizing corrupt clergy, but this remains unclear, as its nigh impossible to find the lyrics online, except for a blurry image on Discogs.
Regardless, Shocking the Priest is fairly emblematic of the band’s early sound. In the early ’90’s, Christian death metal was still just getting off the ground, and a lot of these fledgling early death metal acts were only releasing demos and EP’s, or in some cases, singles. In the case of Royal Anguish, the music definitely reeks of all the trappings of old-school death metal’s immature first steps, and is much lighter than other bands who would or already were exploring a more brutal sound (The Risen, Crimson Thorn, Living Sacrifice, Metanoia, etc.). Matt Knowles, the central member of the band since its inception, showcases a hoarse barked vocal that almost sounds more thrash-like in delivery. Riffs are simplistic and repetitive, though the final track, “Rest in Pieces,” begins with a solo riff more suitable on a traditional heavy metal or hard rock album (something bands like Metanoia and Hazeroth would later incorporate into their respective styles of metal) before descending into the skittering madness heard on the previous three tracks.
When I say skittering, I’m referring to a particularly unique element in Royal Anguish’s sound. Unlike a lot of other bands at the time, Royal Anguish’s early style emphasizes a kind of shuffling high-speed blastbeat that ushers the riffs along like a torrent of haphazard thrash metal noise. To my knowledge, few other bands in the Christian scene, if any, did this. The end result is a bit messy and ramshackle, but the uniqueness of its effect remains.
Though Royal Anguish’s early work easily gets lost amongst the punishing sounds of more famous bands of the era, it’s an interesting curiosity for those who are interested in mining the more forgotten corners of Christian death metal’s history.
Those of you who are curious can give it a listen HERE.
For Fans Of: Morbid Sacrifice, Mortification (early), Deracination
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