Metal Church

Metal Church is an American heavy metal band from Seattle. They formed as Shrapnel in 1981, their legendary first album was released in 1984, and the band's most recent work, The Weight of the World was released in 2004.

Metal Church is an American heavy metal band from Seattle. They formed as Shrapnel in 1981, their legendary first album was released in 1984, and the band's most recent work, The Weight of the World was released in 2004. Metal Church was formed when the Thrash/Speed Metal Genre was still evolving. Most of their early work had a special trademark that resembled many of the European Black and Death Metal bands of the 1980's. The songs in their most succesful albums, the self-titled Metal Church and The Dark, proved to be thoroughly worked albums. David Wayne's vocals resembled those of the growls used by the european black metal bands but in a very high pitched tone. The lyrics from the album The Dark talk about death, assasination, and fears. Metal church is still a working band, they are working with their third vocalist, and even though the days of thrash metal are now over, they still have a lot of life left in them.

Kurdt Vanderhoof started a band he named Metal Church, after the alias given to his apartment where he and his friends worshipped at the altar of heavy metal, in 1980 in San Francisco. Lars Ulrich is considered the drummer at first, but he ends up moving to Los Angeles. As nothing else was happening in San Francisco, Kurdt moved back to his hometown in Aberdeen,Washington. In 1981, he formed a band named Shrapnel. It consisted of Kirk Arrington on drums, Mick Murphy on vocals, and Craig Wells handling guitars. Kirk brought in a friend, Duke Erickson, who could play bass, completing the Shrapnel line-up. Mick Murphy left the band to form "Rogues Gallery", so they recruit David Wayne for vocal duties. By 1983, Shrapnel is re-named Metal Church.