Tourniquet - "Crawl to China"

Tourniquet - Crawl to China
1997, Benson

1. Claustrospelunker
2. Crawl to China
3. Enveloped in Python
4. White Knucklin' the Rosary
5. If I Was There
6. The Tell-Tale Heart
7. Bats
8. Proprioception: The Line Knives Syndrome
9. Tire Kicking
10. If Pigs Could Fly
11. Crank the Knife
12. Stumblefoot
13. Imaginary Friend
14. Going, Going...Gone
15. America

For me 1997 was one of the worst years in music. I honestly cannot think of one good album (in the Christian scene) that came out. Crawl to China is no exception. I'm not sure what was going on here only to say that they must have been trying to appeal to a wider audience. Problem is nothing here is really done well. There's a few cool songs like "Crawl to China" and I love the silly "Bats" but other than that I'm just in awe that a such a great band like Tourniquet could put out such an terrible album. I would have liked it better if they would have just sold out completely and done hookier-hard rock songs but man... there is nothing here to hold on to. Nothing's really metal, but nothing's really radio friendly either - except the ballad. The cover pictured is the new reissued one and I picked it because the original cover art is crap.

Useless Fact: As I understand it the band had no say in the original cover art. It was something that Benson dreamed up. Benson. Like... the label that Carman was on. Yeah... definitely a low point for the band.