Millennium 8 Distribution is doing us all the favour of reissuing classic albums from the '80s and early '90s. So far, artists featured include Dance House Children and Lifesavers Underground. The latest in the series is the classic melodic metal album Tell the Truth..., originally released by Philadelphia in 1984.
Tell the Truth... harkens back to brighter days, when the hair was big, the men were effeminate, and the fingernails were painted. While bands like Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister were singing about sex and drugs in the secular realm, Stryper, Barren Cross, and others were trying to spread God's word. Philadelphia was another such group, combining trendy heavy metal music with biblically-grounded, highly evangelistic lyrics such as these, from the title track:
This world, it runs on pain and gain for greedy ones
Yeah, it's all gonna turn into ashes
Our world's way will end one day. It'll stop
I saw, as fast as summer lightning flashes
C'mon, tell the truth, you know who'll win
His name is Light
He is the warrior-king
And He will rule and reign forever
So, yeah. It's cheesy. It's dated. It's poorly produced by today's standards. But it's a part of our history, and one usually ignored. Thanks to Millennium Distribution for making available this and other classics.
Other coverage for this album
Opus 2005Reviewed by Jason MoreheadOriginally released in 1985, I'm sure that this release raised some eyebrows back then. Tooth & Nail Records was still years away, and the Christian music scene was starting to realize that you could create music that could sound "secular" and yet still be "spiritual." So I'm sure that Philadelphia raised the ire of some Christian parents, convinced that their good little youth group-attending…Dead Zine 2002Reviewed by SORGPhiladelphia is a band that I had heard of but never heard, until now. This cd is definitely one for the history books, when it came out on vinyl in 1984 it truly was one of the first Christian metal recordings that I am aware of. The cd kicks off with the title track, a killer tune with great addictive riffs and sounds very similar to early Saint and Judas Priest. The vocals are a little slurred…Dead Zine 2002Reviewed by D_ListerThe early 80's...the Cars were big in the pop scene, and bands wore tight pants with flashy shirts. Philadelphia came out of left field playing a Melodic Early Heavy Metal dubbed "Righteous Rock" and they didn't get marketed to the Christian industry as much as they did the secular world. I'll be honest I had heard tell about this band, but until I popped this re-issue CD by M8 Distribution into…The Phantom Tollbooth 1999Reviewed by Bert GanglMention '80s rock & roll and most people envision groups like Poison, Winger and any number of other bands whose slick, hook-laden pop-metal and highly visual approach locked them in as staples of both rock radio and music television. Of course, in Christian music a comparable, albeit much smaller, collection of artists were combining the sound and appearance of their mainstream counterparts with…Similar sounding releases
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