Up until now, my only encounter with Christian groups, was through several contemporary (power) pop bands and, even though I have nothing against using rock’n’roll for praising the Lord, to me it just doesn’t seem convincing enough if provided through sweet sounding melodies.
I suppose the above was not really the reason why The Pilgrims changed their initial Shadows/Mersey inspired direction for the somewhat cruder sounding r’n’b sound by the time the sixties were entering their second half, but to these ears, it was definitely after this decision that they started to make their point.
Not that there wasn’t some cool stuff to be heard in their more melodic repertoire, like the moody, minor-keyed Poet-ism of I Didn’t Care and Wait And See, or the Zombie-fied feel of Any Time Of The Day, it’s the marriage of the essence of the “devil’s music” and Christianity that kinda really makes sense.
Resulting in the “Pretty” freakbeat sound (with less frenetic vocal deliveries) of the opening pair of Hey You and Thank You Lord, in a bit of an Animalism of There’s Someone In Your Life, or even some purer r’n’b forms like the smokestack”-like I Know I’m Going To Heaven or the explosive “boom boom” sound of I Found A Special Friend.
Though they officially released only one Mersey-flavoured single back in 1964, the “pilgrimage” presented on this CD offers a pretty wide range of material, that could’ve easily stand the test of time, had it only been given a proper chance/production.
[Released by LRL 2004]
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