The Prayer Chain is one of the best-known acts to come out of Christian Rock's "Third Wave." The melding of Eric Campuzano's accomplished bass work, Wayne Everett's complex precision thrashing on drums, Andrew Prickett's swirling guitar and Tim Taber's urgent angst-filled vocals created a memorable driving, atmospheric sound that is still influencing bands seven years after the Prayer Chain's last full-length studio album. The band's triumphant return to this year's Cornerstone Festival provided an appropriate time to release the band's new retrospective disk, Here Comes the Rust.
The album's seventeen tracks chronicle six projects, all in order of release date. For fans of the Prayer Chain, there isn't likely to be much new material here, save the final two cuts from a rare limited-run disc released after the band's split, and a live version of a song originally featured on Shawl. However, Here Comes the Rust is a nice collection spanning the highlights of the band's career, and fans are likely to be appreciative to have a concisely packaged chronology such as this. For newcomers, this is a good place to start. With several cuts from six discs appearing on this record, the Prayer Chain's sound throughout a period of seven years or so is well represented.
It would be nice if the band had found some unreleased tracks or had gone into the studio to put together a few new cuts, but otherwise, Here Comes the Rust is a fun trip down memory lane.
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Other coverage for this album
The Phantom Tollbooth 2003Reviewed by Trae CadenheadThe Prayer Chain's performance at Cornerstone Festival 2003 was its first after six years of retirement. The show was enough to remind old fans that The Prayer Chain was one of the best bands to ever grace Christian alternative music. For those who hadn't heard The Prayer Chain back in its heyday, it was a chance to latch onto a band that was truly a groundbreaker in its time. Here Comes the Rust…The Phantom Tollbooth 2003Reviewed by Matt ModrichThe Prayer Chain was one of the pioneer groups of Christian rock. In the days before Tooth and Nail and punk rock, the band played an original form of grunge straight out of Southern California. The Prayer Chain's greatest hits CD Here Comes The Rust is an independently released disc featuring seventeen songs from The Whirlpool EP, Shawl, Mercury, Antarctica, and the rare So Close Yet So Far.…The Phantom Tollbooth 2003Reviewed by Kevin MathewsThis retrospective (the second, after 1998's So Close Yet So Far) captures the highlights of the Prayer Chain's output during the first half of the last decade. "Shine" is probably its best-known moment, although to these ears, comparisons with Big Rock-era Simple Minds cannot be avoided. However, upon closer inspection, songs like "I Believe," "Whirlpool," and "Crawl" reveal a closer affinity…Similar sounding releases
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