Icon for Hire‘s sophomore album was released today. They are sticking to the current trend of this year and released it as a self titled album. I don’t recall so many self titled albums coming out in a year before. Some of them are from bands that have been around ten or more years. Okay, enough on the self titled rant.
2013
12 songs, 42 min 51 secs
A little background on Icon for Hire. Some consider them a Christian band..in fact this album is number 7 on the Christian charts just off the pre-orders. It is not doing as well on the general charts as it is number 267.
Since early in the band’s career, they have denied that the group is a Christian band, with Ariel stating, “We are very intentionally not trying to save the church; we are trying to save the world. We believe that if we follow the pathway of a typical Christian band and stick to only playing churches and stick to being signed to a Christian label, we’re not going to fulfil the purpose that we are called to fulfil. That’s great for a lot of bands, and I’m really glad that there are bands doing that, but we know why we’re here, and we’re not here for that.”
Ariel has gone in further with “the average rock music lover will never have a chance to be impacted by our music if all these Christians keep calling us a Christian band online and scaring them away. Posting that we’re playing ‘Holy Tabernacle Christian Fellowship’ on our Facebook is a death sentence for us, it alienates us from our potential or realized non-christian fans.”
The band has always had a more hard rock or almost metal like feel to them but with this album they are sticking to a heavy metal sound while a couple songs like Sugar and Spice and Pop Culture have a pop rock sound.
All in all this album is pretty good. If you like metal but also enjoy some more popish bands like Black Eyed Peas you will enjoy this.
