Living Sacrifice - Reborn
It's really no coincidence that Living Sacrifice has called its first album in three years "Reborn." It has a new lead singer in Bruce Fitzhugh, a new record label (Tooth & Nail), and new slower — yet more intense — sound. Yet, these changes are the obvious ones; changes even a blind man can see. But it's the growth and maturity in Living Sacrifice which — though less observable to the naked eye — that makes this new CD such a powerful and representative recording for this veteran band.
"Our focus on what we are called to do is a lot more clear," states drummer Lance Garvin. "We'd really lost focus towards the last album. The whole thing is reborn. Our focus on Jesus and our individual walks, and that drive to preach the gospel is all new. It's awesome."
"We totally had to humble ourselves," continues Fitzhugh. "And the Lord had to definitely do a work in us. And we had to submit to what we knew He wanted to do, and to essentially lay down some musical pride, and to do what we were supposed to do as far as being in a band and trying to reach people. Not compromising musically at all, but just letting God make us better songwriters, ultimately, in order to reach more folks. To let them know how awesome God is."
When the band was at the crossroads wondering if they should continue or not, there was no voice from on high or any parting of the sea, but still the band knew it was the right thing to do. "God just kind of rekindled the fire we had when we started," recalls Garvin.
"We were all kind of wondering and seeking the Lord," adds Fitzhugh. "And basically trying to regain focus individually. And we all really felt sure and positive about continuing. That was totally confirmed through some circumstances and (through) some folks we talked to, and through our pastor. And our pastor didn't even know our situation at all."
Major changes either break a band apart, or force it to bond together. In Living Sacrifice's case, the group became even more unified with these events than they had been before. "We felt like we really weren't finished with what God had to do with us," recalls Fitzhugh. "We really felt like we were still viable musically and everything. We just wanted to continue on as Living Sacrifice."
Fitzhugh makes it all sound so simple and inevitable when he states that "I started singing, and we started looking for another record deal." Oddly enough, Fitzhugh had not been priming himself to take over the singing duties. It's not as if he and DJ had been alternating the vocal duties in the past. "I did not sing before," states Fitzhugh matter-of-factly. "It was kind of the thing where it was me, Lance, and (guitarist) Jason (Truby), and we knew we were going to keep going, but we didn't want to bring in a new singer." This statement alone reveals how important unity is to this group. Call it tradition or call it chemistry. Call it anything you like, but always call it a unified group, as opposed to a gathering of individuals playing music together.
Living Sacrifice was not only of one purpose during this time, but it was also patient. "It didn't come easy," explains Fitzhugh when looking back upon his newfound duty as a singer. "It probably took about a year or so for me to really figure out what I wanted to do vocally."
Of course Fitzhugh and the band believe in his singing, but the true confirmation must come from the fans themselves. "The feedback that we've gotten from the last two years that we've been touring and playing seems to be really positive all the way around. My style is very different than DJ's, yet at the same time my style has got an aggressive quality to it that folks who liked the old lyrics will (also) like the way I'm singing." Fitzhugh's style also differs from DJ's in that he probably enunciates better than his predecessor.
"I kind of want people to understand what I'm saying. Though I'm yelling and it's aggressive, I try to make everything really clear. A lot of the phrasing is really important, I think, in what we're doing. That's probably one of the biggest changes; the way I phrase things as opposed to the way DJ phrased some of the things he did."
It's refreshing to find a band in 1997 — when everybody and their brother is trying to jump on all the different offshoots of the alternative movement — that is not ashamed to call itself heavy metal. It's music is characterized by low guttural singing, even lower and more guttural musical riffing, and drumming that machine guns through the speakers.
And although the music is tight, the playing itself serves to enhance the songs, instead of being an end in and of itself. "We don't consider anything we do now as being necessarily a solo," explains Fitzhugh. "We might have a lead part with a harmony and some dissonance that compliments the song. We don't want anything really to take away from the whole of the song." The songs are blunt and to the point, and the goal is immediate and clear communication. Unlike some of the "hair & make up" bands from the 80s, Living Sacrifice puts the heavy back in heavy metal.
"Our stuff has kind of a serious tone to it," states Fitzhugh. "Not that we're serious people all the time, but this is just the style that appeals to us, and it tends to take a serious tone. As opposed to, I don't know, a happy-go-lucky type tone. I guess most people would liken our sound to a hardcore metal sound. But to us, we've just always kind of grown up listening to metal of all kinds. When metal became really commercial, that's where we kind of dropped off listening to it — with some of the glam bands of the 80s, and some of that."
Their music supports the seriousness of the lyrics. "We want good songs," explains Fitzhugh, "but we also want them to be powerful. That kind of goes along with the sounds we get out of our guitars, and our amps, and just a really heavy drum sound, really low drums and stuff."
"We play what we like to play," says Garvin, putting it simply. "We don't like to bow down to commercialism, or anything like that." Not only does this music serve the members' musical preferences, but it also compliments the group's ministry ideals.
"This type of music draws the type of crowd we feel we're called to preach the gospel to," says Garvin. "We're called to preach the gospel to anybody, but particularly these kind of people — the hardcore kids, (and) the kids that are into Satanism."
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