Lets have a look at the year 1986....

As we all my know, 1986 was a formative year for rock, hard rock and metal releases. Christian hard rock and metal exploded that year. Here are some albums that I have released that year:

WHITEHEART: Don't Wait for the Movie
PETRA: Back to the Street with new vocalist John Schlitt and eventually went in a more hard rock direction
IDLE CURE: Idle Cure
DANIEL BAND: Rise Up, a great follow up to 1984 Run From the Darkness
STRYPER: To Hell With the Devil
MESSIAH PROPHET: Master of the Metal, this was the second release on the new Refuge Records subsidiary PURE METAL RECORDS.
BLOODGOOD: Bloodgood
BARREN CROSS: Rock for the King
SAINT: Times End, this was the first release on the new Refuge Records subsidiary PURE METAL RECORDS.

All the above are great albums. I had the following even though I'm not really a current fan of these artists. These are also worth mentioning:

RICK CUA: Wear Your Colors
BRIDE: Show No mercy
BARNABAS: Little Foxes

Any thoughts on these albums? What other straight forward rock, hard rock and metal albums you have that was released that year? Heaven's Metal did a feature on youtube on this.

As far as metal goes, Saint’s Times End is so, so great. Messiah Prophet’s Master of the Metal is right there too.

On the rock side, Whiteheart’s Don’t Wait for the Movie would be my favorite, with Idle Cure’s debut right there.

Just watched this yesterday. They also did one for 1985

Altar Boys - Gut Level Music was also released in '86. One of my top 5 albums of all time!

Another album released in 1986 was Motherlode - The Sanctuary.   It had some Christian lyrics because Sonny Larsson was the singer (Charizma, Bjorn Stigsson, Leviticus, XT).  Music was good Swedish hard rock in the vein of Deep Purple or Bjorn Stigsson's Together With Friends album.

I was not a Christian yet in 1986 but I knew of or heard some of the albums mentioned.   I had actually shop-lifted a copy of the Messiah Prophet cassette (as I said, was not a believer) and reviewed it in my (secular) fanzine.  The only other one I had back then was Bloodgood's 1st one which I really liked a lot because it was so different from everything else out there at the time.

Looking back, I would say I like parts of most of the albums mentioned...but aside from Messiah Prophet, Motherlode, and maybe Bloodgood, many of the bands mentioned would eventually release albums that I liked much better.   Like Barren Cross with "Atomic Arena" or Bride "Live To Die" or Idle Cure.