This may be a really provocative question....
And I'm referring here to labels like Myrrh, Key and even some private ones.

I am not at all a conoisseur of christian/religious/son-of-somebody rock, having listened only to very few. Thus I wonder what somebody who's more expert than me thinks.
Apart from some groups, is the remainder to be discarded or even blamed?
Personally, apart from OUT OF DARKNESS, don't think that we can save much...
But up to you! ;-)


Bernardo

I ride for Christian Yoga Church.

Search...err,summat "Montgomery Chapel" contains some hot fire nuggets


Any christianrock lp, like Birmingham Sunday, sporting the generic sundial coverart.

No...maybe not any.

Some great stuff if you shut your ears off to the Lyrics..Love stuff like Azitis 'Help'..

Fraction´s Moonblood LP is Heavy xian Psych.

Hi Bernardo,im no connuoisure(wrongly spelt i know...lol..)of Xian psych,i only have a handful of cdds,like Wilson Mckinley which is pretty darn good,Search Party,Glass Harp(whose 3 albums are worth hearing),Out of Darkness(never knew they had a live album )What about Salamanders "Ten Commandments" album,which to my ears is a fabulous psych/prog crossover item.Thats about all i've got guys.

Dawning of the Day ''Our Generation'' & ''Praise and Prayer''

Father Pat Berkery ''Prayers for a Noonday Church'' praying for a CD release.

Xian rock works best for me when the lyrics are not the overtly happy slappy 'jesus saved me' type of thing or when it's in a foreign language so you don't 'get it' anyway. Musically, I like or even love a lot of what I've heard of it, including what's already been mentioned. It's no different to any other prog-psych / psych rock, just the lyrics and the motivation. No different to gospel / soul in that respect. There are several good vinyl LP compilations I play often:

Alleluiah Garantie - A French / Quebecoise comp 1966-73 and currently doing the rounds. Ranges from garage pop to kicking blow-up ' beat bespoke' type 60s club dancers. I was impressed with it, not what you'd expect really, very strong tunes.

Electric Holyland - US god rock and probably the best christian comp I have heard so far plus a brilliant sleeve design. Other than the overly long Earthen Vessel track, the others are really good and not overtly Christian lyrics particularly.

Pentecostos Vibrations - Spanish LP comp which has a good selection of vibrant tunes

There's also the US Holy Fuzz comp. Same people as did Electric Holyland I think but it's a lot more lo-fi and not as hot as that comp, still worth a listen though.

Lsstly, there's a Norwegian comp on both LP and CD called Lukk Opp Kirkens Dorer [Open The Church Doors]: A Selection of Norwegian Christian Jazz, psych, Funk & Folk 1970-80. This is much better than I expected, but it has a wider style selection as the title implies, still groovy for the most part though.

I actually saw 2nd Chapter of Acts live back in 1980, a big bore really. Grew up with a lot of this stuff, Larry Norman, Glass Harp, Randy Stonehill (saw him live too) but recently after picking up the Archivist book I have revisited what I can from the Jesus rock movement, found some gems and realized it wasn't as bad as I remembered.

Check out After The Fire's first album, really nice Genesis/ BJH styled stuff-big surprise from their later electro pop.

"Verrry interesting, but...."

How am I supposed to check this AFTER THE FIRE out?

Must be hard to find.

Not really. I've got one. They're on ebay, and not terribly expensive. I think it had a CD reissue as well. It's basically the same outfit that morphed into a Pop band in the 80s and had a hit with "Der Kommissar." The Peter Banks on keys is obviously not the ex-Yes guitarist.

Ebay is for richmens.

Do me a favour - play it and give us a review.
I read somewhere that its basically AOR.

The absolute BEST Christian Rock Band.
Ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8

One band I would suggest is an american band that some say pioneered the genre it self, they're called Mind Ggarage they created a rock n roll mass. Its really good, gritty and heavy sounding stuff. Some of this stuff is on youtube . The Maranatha prog rock mass is a good one too.the electric prunes did some stuff with david axelrod that was totally christian and epic too for psych stuff . Other than stuff like thisi would recommend Ancient christian music - no NOT MID(EVIL) MUSIC!! ! I'm talking about stuff before it- ethiopian tewahedo and coptic music -this was before any western form - plus it was before the west demonized "tritones" there are a ton of those in what I'm talking a bout - chant style and folk. Keep in mind I'm a dude that likes punk rock chaotic stuff like free jazz and grindcore and also disonant prog with tons of changes. And other kinds of strange music with odd meters minors and atonality.

From down under there are a few good (as opposed to very good) christian rock albums. Bakery (who were ex members of the NZ group the avengers) were into that. The New Zealand group the Rumour were also very into Christianity. Of course there were the singing nuns thread i mentioned earlier, Sister Janet Mead. Less emphasis on rock more on Christianity perhaps.

The Bakery album is titled Rock Mass for Love

I also had a not expensive ATF lp, it's a nice LP, also like Narnia on Myrrh and their singer Pauline Filby solo effort, Water Into Wine, Reynard first lp, The Sheep on Myrrh too, Sidney Carter "And Now It' So Early" on Galliard (with Bob & Carol Pegg), Reflection "The Present Tense", Sound of Salvation. As far as I remember these were the only one I liked, incl. Out Of Darkness. Never heard Aslan so far, they could be good too

Wallace rides for Aslan.