Reviewed by Tony Cummings

If ever there was an album that defined a band's career, this stunning celebration of musical brutality from 1997 did the job for Living Sacrifice. Its welcomed reissue shows it's lost none of its cathartic power. The band's guitarist and singer (sorry, growler) Bruce Fitzhugh told HM magazine, "When we wrote 'Reborn' we got rid of all our music. We wanted to write a record that came from us and no one else. Our first record was influenced by bands like Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica. 'Nonexistent' was influenced by some of the same bands, but was more death metal. 'Inhabit' was influenced by Malevolent Creation. I felt like 'Reborn' was the first real Living Sacrifice record. That's why we chose the name." A metal album with strong hardcore influences it also echoes back to the rhythmic invention of classic thrash metal. A far from easy listening experience, it has the same kind of unbridled dark intensity that made Sepultura such a scary sound but the rasped lyrics here could hardly be more different - "Breath of God released faith/Creates all life" begins "Truth Solution" while "Awakening" with its deep, deep groove has the memorable imagery "Our spirits no longer reek of sleep/Through prayer we've entered in the throne room." Tragically there are plenty of culturally blind folk in the Church who'll catch one blast of this furious wall of noise and denounce it as satanic. For more enlightened hard rock lovers, here's a chance to hear again a Christian hard music classic in all its brutal glory and catch that master guitarist, Jason Truby, in pre-P.O.D. days, in the process.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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