Considered by most to be the very first American death rock album that would be highly influential on the goth sound that would develop through the 80s, Christian Death's Only Theatre Of Pain is a classic of dark, blasphemous punk that has had a significant impact on so much of the music that I listen to and that I carry here at C-Blast. It's hard to imagine black metal taking form the way it did if Christian Death had never infected the underground punk scene with their anti-Christian imagery, their fascination with death and the occult, and the perpetually dark atmosphere and confrontational attitude that exudes from Only Theatre Of Pain, and the influence of this album on bands as diverse as Sixx, Deathcharge, Nuit Noire and Soror Dolorosa is unmistakable.
Released in 1982, this death punk masterpiece has been reissued for its 20th anniversary, with new artwork and layout as well as the addition of bonus tracks, and it's essential for anyone into the darkest strains of punk and hardcore. Coming out of the Southern California hardcore scene, the band combined Adolescents axeman Rikk Agnew's offbeat guitar playing and the driving rhythm section with bizarre haunted house organ flourishes, tolling bells, and a sickly, dread-filled atmosphere that refuses to let up at any point on the album. But the band's focal point was always their flamboyant front man Rozz Williams, who brought a weird glam influence to Christian Death's morbid punk. His fey whining vocal style was totally unique and perfectly fit the disaffected, negative feel of Christian Death's music, and his bizarre, surrealist lyrics and transgressive visions read like sketches of a nightmare, rife with all kinds of perversion, necrophilia, incest and murder. These themes possess Only Theatre Of Pain from the creepy death obsession of the rocking opener "Cavity - First Communion" to the classic heavy death rock of "Figurative Theatre", "Mysterium Iniquitatis", and "Dream For Mother". There are a couple of slower songs where the band drops into a buzzsaw hardcore dirge ("Spiritual Cramp", "Resurrection - Sixth Communion"), the ghoulish black psychedelia of "Burnt Offerings" and "Prayer", and the serpentine, Middle Eastern-tinged devil vision of "Stairs - Uncertain Journey". If this album would ever have had a single, though, it probably would have been the song "Romeo's Distress", one of the catchiest songs that Christian Death ever wrote, and it feels like it could have been a huge hit for the band if only the lyrics weren't so politically incorrect.
This new reissue of Only Theatre Of Pain also features several unreleased tracks, including the heavy, almost metallic "Deathwish", the trippy synth-laden black dirge "Dogs" and the lysergic howling witch-punk of "Desperate Hell", along with rougher early versions of "Romeo's Distress", "Spiritual Cramp", and "Cavity" that appear here for the first time..