Review by Daniel for Jacob’s Well - Fight for Paradise (1986)

Three-piece Adelaide Christian metal band Jacob's Well formed around brothers John & David Owens back in 1985 with the duo enlisting the services of guitar-slinging frontman Glen Cannon to help them play a classic style of heavy metal that pushed their faith-based messaging right to the front of the stage. Not much is known about the group (in fact, they're not even listed on RYM) but they managed to put out three full-length albums over a period of three decades with 1986's "Fight for Paradise" cassette being their debut. I have to admit that I hadn't heard of Jacob's Well until a few years ago when I checked "Fight for Paradise" out as a part of a deep dive into the early roots of Australian metal. I can't say that it's left an indelible mark on me but it's not horrible either. There's definitely a major obstacle to overcome if you're gonna accept Jacob's Well as a serious metal band though so let's take a closer look.

Despite there being a clear hard rock influence to Jacob's Well's sound, you never really feel that "Fight for Paradise" is anything other than a heavy metal record. "Living Again" is probably the only track where I see myself admitting that it's obviously a hard rock number with the others all benefiting from rip-roaring guitar tone that single-handedly drags the song-writing into realms that are only perpetuated by metal bands. This is one of the major drawcards for the album actually, along with Cannon's general technique as he's a highly proficient lead guitarist who knows how to leave his mark on a song. The other two band members are also pretty decent musicians & the production job is more than acceptable too however it's Cannon's vocals that present the obvious obstacle for your average metalhead, particularly in the lyrical department. You see, you'll rarely find a Christian metal band who so gratuitously rapes the listeners ears with their religious message. In most cases, you can force yourself to ignore the lyrics with these sort of acts but it's simply not possible with Jacob's Well as they try to stuff literally all of the Christian catch phrases into every passage & I'm sure that they'd come across as being fairly "lowest common denominator" in a creative sense if you read them on paper too. Cannon's vocal chops aren't terrible but they also see him pushing himself right up to the limit & you can hear it at times through some mild pitchiness here & there.

Apart from those God-awful lyrics (quite literally), the song-writing isn't too bad & I could see some of these tunes being pretty decent listens if they weren't so preachy. In fact, "Return of the King" is a classic Aussie metal song in its own right & has completely won me over. Opener "Loving Heart" isn't too bad either with its anthemic chorus seeing proceedings getting off to a decent start. The rest of the material showed a lot of promise from an instrumental persepctive but failed to connect with me through the isolationism experienced through its messaging. This is a shame really as Jacob's Well showed a fair bit of potential here with some of the structures feeling like you're listening to a Dio or an Iron Maiden song. There wasn't a lot of high-quality Aussie heavy metal around at the time either so I think that other punters have also been put off by the lyrical content which has seen a muzzle being placed over any commercial aspirations that Jacob's Well may have harboured. I won't be returning to "Fight for Paradise" unless the light of Christ finally unveils itself to me in a completely undeniable format.

For fans of Bloodgood, Barren Cross & Saint.