Christian Death: The Rozz Williams Era 1981 - 1985

 

Rozz Williams (born Roger Alan Painter, November 6, 1963) founded Christian Death in Los Angeles in 1979, having grown up in the eastern suburb of Pomona in a Christian family. The

founding fathers of American goth rock, Christian Death emerged in 1979 and, for over four decades, have taken a relentlessly confrontational stand against organized religion and conventional morality, with a massive appetite for provocation. Regardless of who was leading or performing in the group, Christian Death set themselves up to shock, both in their cover art and their lyrics, which wallowed in blasphemy, morbidity, drug use, and sexual perversity.
                 

Their self-consciously controversial tactics set them apart from the British goth scene, having more to do with L.A. punk and heavy metal, and thus the band dubbed its sound "death rock" instead; however, their sensibility was ultimately similar enough that the "goth" designation stuck in the end. Their music

also relied on slow, doomy, effects-laden guitar riffs and ambient horror-soundtrack synths, and their theatrical performances were strongly influenced by British glam rockers like David Bowie and Roxy Music, as well as industrial provocateurs Throbbing Gristle. The latter was especially true of the band's first incarnation, led by vocalist and founder Rozz Williams, who masterminded much of what many critics consider their best work.
                  

Hooking up with Frontier Records, Christian Death issued their debut album, the goth landmark Only

Theatre of Pain, in 1982. Featuring genre touchstones like "Romeo's Distress" and "Spiritual Cramp," the record also included guest vocals from Superheroines leader Eva O. (born Eva Oritz), who would become Williams' wife and semiregular collaborator in 1987.
                 

Having already booked a European tour, the original lineup of Christian Death splintered amid

infighting and drug abuse. Williams quickly assembled a new version of the band in 1983 by merging with their scheduled opening act, another L.A. death rock band called Pompeii 99, and eventually settled on retaining the more evocative Christian Death name. Australian-born guitarist Valor Kand, keyboardist/vocalist Gitane Demone, and drummer David Glass joined with Williams to create the best-known Christian Death lineup (bassist Constance Smith was also onboard, but was soon replaced on the

tour by the Sex Gang Children's Dave Roberts). While overseas, the group recorded the second Christian Death album, Catastrophe Ballet, another much-revered goth rock record that appeared on the French label L'Invitation au Suicide in 1984.
                    

When Williams left in 1985, guitarist Valor Kand took over leadership and sent the group in a

more intellectual, political, and metal-oriented direction. Christian Death had an enormous influence on the American goth scene, shaping the sensibility of countless goth, metal, and even industrial acts that followed. Sadly, the Kand-Williams dispute ended in tragedy in 1998, when a heroin-addicted Williams took his own life. (April 1 - 1998)
                  

In January 2015, Christian Death announced the planned release of the PledgeMusic funded studio

album, The Root of All Evilution. The album was digitally released on August 14, 2015, by Knife Fight Media, and on vinyl on October 16, 2015, by Season of Mist. A CD release was announced for December 18, 2015, on The End Records. The band's next studio album, titled Evil Becomes Rule, was released in May 2022. John Albert, who had co-founded Christian Death with Williams, died on May 3, 2023.
                    

CHRISTIAN DEATH - ONLY THEATRE OF PAIN 1982

                               

The 1984 debut album from goth mongers Christian Death can, in retrospect, be seen as something of a landmark release. While lyrics about Lucifer, sodomy, necrophilia, and church hypocrisy (like "Burnt Offerings" and "Cavity: First Communion") may seem commonplace now, they weren't in 1984. But it's

the gloom-and-doom atmosphere here, the creepy dungeon feel of the music, that makes the greater impression, and puts Christian Death on the map as forerunners in their genre. Describing the album's themes, The A.V. Club said the record is "relentless in its morbid embrace of Christian eschatology. Williams was raised in a Southern Baptist family, which makes his adversarial appropriation of Catholic imagery more nuanced than simple blasphemy; he’s approaching the cross from the perspective of both Protestantism and what one can only assume to be either atheism or Satanism".
                 

Christian Death – Only Theatre Of Pain
Label: Frontier Records – FCD 1007, Epitaph – 80103-2
Format: CD, Album, Reissue
Country: US
Released: 1997
Genre: Rock
Style: Goth Rock, Deathrock

TRAXS

            

01. Cavity - First Communion    4:06
02. Figurative Theatre    2:42
03. Burnt Offerings    3:45
04. Mysterium Iniquitatis    2:45
05. Dream For Mother    3:22
06. Stairs - Uncertain Journey    3:06
07. Spiritual Cramp    2:56
08. Romeo's Distress    3:15
09. Resurrection - Sixth Communion    3:46
10. Prayer    2:39
11. Deathwish    2:11
12. Romeo's Distress (Version)    3:20
13. Dogs    2:52
14. Desperate Hell    4:22
15. Spiritual Cramp (Version)    3:18
16. Cavity (Version)    3:45

LINE - UP

Rozz Williams – lead vocals, production, sleeve drawings, cover concept
Rikk Agnew – guitars, production
James McGearty – bass guitars, production
George Belanger – drums, production

ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS

Eva O – backing vocals
Ron Athey – backing vocals

FIGURATIVE THEATRE LYRICS

                           

In the shallow holes of a thousand eyes
In the knee deep graves of future survivors
The fleshless guests live off children of the past
And their aging fingers cast the shadow of death

Their razor sharp tongues invite to relax
As they slip the skin on your eyelids back
Invasive spectators get into the act
With roses and candles, silver knives and

Persona read women dance with priests on a side road
Your vision perspectives are turning to stone
A cabaret slide show starts shooting their loads
Act one is the end and the show now begins

Their razor sharp tongues invite to relax
As they slip the skin on your eyelids back
Invasive spectators get into the act
With roses and candles, silver knives and

      

Breath ballet prancers spin on porcelain backbones
A child's muddled cry turns into hilarity
Ungracious freeloaders leave their dead on a doorstep
Flowers of doom all bloom in prosperity

Their razor sharp tongues invite to relax
As they slip the skin on your eyelids back
Invasive spectators get into the act
With roses and candles, silver knives and spoons
With silver knives and spoons

The luxuries of past days are the luxuries of our days
The luxuries of past days are the luxuries of our days

Flac Size: 426 MB

CHRISTIAN DEATH - DEATHWISH EP (DELUXE EDITION) (RECORDED IN 1981 - RELEASED IN 1984) - REISSUE IN 2012

                 

Deathwish is an EP by American deathrock band Christian Death. It consists of demos recorded by the

band in 1981, prior to the release of Christian Death's debut album Only Theatre of Pain, but was not released until 1984 by French record label l'Invitation au Suicide. Deathwish was recorded in 1981 at Orange County Studios in California, prior to the band signing to Frontier Records for Only Theatre of Pain (1982). In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic Ned Raggett gave the EP 3 out of 5 stars and wrote that "[the EP is] a great peek into some of the band's roughest beginnings".

                         

Christian Death – Deathwish
Label: Normal – NORMAL 84 CD
Format: CD, EP, Reissue, Optimal Media GmbH Pressing 2012
Country: Germany
Released:
Genre: Rock
Style: Goth Rock

TRAXS

           

01. Deathwish    2:13
02. Romeo's Distress    3:22
03. Dogs    2:52
04. Desperate Hell    4:21
05. Spiritual Cramp    3:15
06. Cavity    3:46
07. Sleepwalk (Original Version)
08. Invocation III
09. Haloes
10. Spectre (Love Is Dead)
11. Romeo’s Distress (Demo 1981)

NOTES

Limited Deluxe Edition reissue of the powerful and legendary EP of demo recordings by goth rock icons Christian Death originally released in 1984 but recorded in 1981 just prior to their debut album!

Flac Size: 275 MB

CHRISTIAN DEATH - CATASTROPHE BALLET 1984 WITH RHAPSODY OF YOUTH AND RAIN 1987

              

Catastrophe Ballet finds Christian Death at its early peak, both focused on and committed to the music. The subject matter revolves around the subversive juxtaposition of the religious and the erotic, while

the arrangements utilize minor-key metal guitar riffs and eerie synth backings. Besides founder Rozz Williams, the lineup on the album is completely different from the band's debut, Only Theatre of Pain, and is the first record to feature future band leader Valor Kand. This and the follow-up record Ashes would be the final releases to feature Williams before his departure in mid 1985. Catastrophe Ballet, featured a change in Williams' vocal delivery. While Only Theatre of Pain and the Deathwish EP had Williams presenting a rhythmic spoken word style with an almost androgynous pitch to his voice, Catastrophe Ballet showed a richer, less harsh side to his vocal stylings, with more influence from

David Bowie and Lou Reed. Rather than the occult-oriented lyrics from the first album, the singer showed a new-found interest in Surrealism and the Dada movement. Kand, Demone and Glass shared these interests, and the synergy between them helped cultivate the musical change from the old band's murky, dark punk to a more elegant, romantic strain of guitar-driven rock, though a tribalistic drumming was also added into the mix.  
                   

Christian Death – A Catastrophe Ballet With Rhapsody Of Youth And Rain
Label: Contempo Records – Contedisc 105
Format: CD, Album 1987
Country: Italy
Released: 1984
Genre: Rock
Style: Goth Rock

TRAXS

                

01. Awake At The Wall   3:58
Written-By – G. Demone, R. Williams, Valor
02. Sleepwalk   5:18
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
03. The Drowning   4:05
Written-By – R. Williams
04. The Blue Hour   4:57
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
05. As Evening Falls   3:32
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
06. Androgynous Noise Hand Permeates   1:16
Written-By – D. Parkinson, Valor
07. Electra Descending   4:32
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
08. Cervix Couch   4:57
Written-By – G. Demone, R. Williams, Valor
09. This Glass House   3:13
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
10. The Fleeing Somnambulist   4:25
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
11. The Somnolent Persuit    4:29
Written-By – R. Williams, Valor
12. After The Rain   3:08
Written-By – D. Glass, Valor
13. Between Youth   4:14
Written-By – B. Galvin, Valor

LINE - UP

Rozz Williams – lead vocals
Valor Kand – guitars, backing vocals
Gitane Demone – keyboards, backing vocals
Constance Smith – bass
David Glass – drums

THE DROWNING LYRICS
                  

Up for three days
Up for three days
Down under ground for six more
Incisions cannot penetrate my feet
Tripping, gliding, falling numbly
Hands held together with unwanted skin
Ripping, hiding calling dumbly

Oh

You, in houses of mud
You, in gutter sleep-love
You, born to slaughter-swathed gloves
You, dressing daughters and sons
Like you - I am broken and fragile
Like you - I am tasting my heart for the first time
Like you - I am feeding on slumber
Like you - I've left my eyes far behind me
Down for the count I'm still drowning
I'm still drowning

The eighth day
Sleep, the eighth day
Clawed my way back to the first
No gentle fingers collapse on my eyes
Weeping, prying, struggling blindly
There's no sanity standing me back on my feet

           

I'm in an empty room
I'm burning books from you 

               

I'm lost in bed with you
Breaking these mirrors to end all I've seen

Like you - I am broken and fragile
Like you - I am tasting my heart for the first time
Like you - I am feeding on slumber
Like you - I've left my eyes far behind me
Down for the count I'm still drowning
I'm still drowning
I'm still drowning

Flac Size:  MB

CHRISTIAN DEATH - ASHES 1985

               

The second and final studio album done as a full collaboration between Rozz Williams and Valor Kand,

Ashes finds Christian Death at what might have been simply the beginning of a long-term partnership of quality rather than a final break. Williams' vocals are now much more controlled and immediately powerful than the overwrought early days, substituting a quieter sense of later, Bowie-inflected drama instead of, say, Ziggy-era Bowie squealing. Kand's lyrics aren't any less laden with images of religion, twisted sex, insanity and mystic rites -- a ritualism well matched throughout by the music -- but the near-adolescent goofiness of earlier times now feels much more considered and focused.  Kand, in the meantime, brings a much more consciously artistic edge to his music than Rikk Agnew did on Only

Theatre of Pain; here the aggressive power is tempered by a huge theatricality that still works, almost in spite of itself. Not to say that this era of Christian Death can't rage as hard -- the conclusion of the opening track, "Ashes" itself, is a frenetic explosion of sound, where drummer David Glass and singer/keyboardist Gitane Demone also earn their keep.
              

Christian Death – Ashes
Label: Season Of Mist – SOM 209
Format: CD, Album, Remastered Oct 6, 2009
Country: US
Released: 1985
Genre: Rock
Style: Goth Rock

TRAXS

                

01. Ashes   7:03
Lyrics By – R. Williams
Music By – Valor
02. Ashes Part 2   2:36
Music By – Valor
03. When I Was Bed   8:09
Lyrics By – R. Williams
Music By – Valor
04. Lament (Over The Shadows)   2:53
Lyrics By – R. Williams
Music By – E. Westfall, H. Reumschussel
05. Face   3:55
Lyrics By – R. Williams
Music By – Valor
06. The Luxury Of Tears   7:06
Lyrics By – R. Williams
Music By – Valor
07. Before The Rain   4:53
Voice – Rozz Williams
Voice, Performer [All Instruments], Recorded By, Mixed By, Engineer – Valor
08. Of The Wound   5:03
Lyrics By – K. Fuller, R. Williams
Music By – Valor

LINE - UP

Bass – Randy Wilde
Clarinet – Michael Andraes
Drums, Percussion, Voice – David Glass
Guitar, Piano, Cello, Voice, Producer, Layout, Remastered By – Valor
Trumpet – Richard Hurwitz
Tuba – Bill Swain
Vocals, Violin, Sounds [Scratching Effects] – Rozz Williams
Voice [Crying] – Sèvan Känd
Voice, Keyboards – Gitane De Mone

BEFORE THE RAIN LYRICS           

 

 

Tryna wipe my mind from half the shit I had to see
I was just a young kid a really really young kid
And I ain't had no guidance but em dirty sticks gone keep me right
I done heard too many sirens we double back we ain't taking no loss Popout wit straps make em pay they cost
& i might fall back but im never lost
My heart went black from all the nonsense
& I see it clear as day why the fuck they mad at me nigga
They be dogging me night and day im da one who brought home cheese nigga

                   

Painkillers I just keep thinking bout them painkillers
Grave diggers just want my mama to make like 8 figures
I ain't the same nigga who you prolly used to know
N all he know is bullet holes he gn cop a pack n get it gone 4times

They ain't believe in me when I was down bad mama
Now look at me im livin free I can't look back mama
I got a kid on the way n cuz of that im gaining focus now
& im forever wit u child dont feel alone cuz im gn hold u down
Early Sunday morning pistol grippin liquor pouring
But he ain't go no emotion they be showin him love but its like his mind jus keep rolling
Pain inside my body it takeover like a fucking drug
I dont wanna hear nobody no more problems they took all my love

Flac Size: 316 MB

Christian Death: Sex And Drugs And jesus Christ 1988 HERE
Christian daeth: Pornographic Messiah 1999 HERE