METAL CHURCH released their second album, "The Dark," on October 6th, 1986 through Elektra, recorded across 1985 and 1986 at Steve Lawson Productions in Seattle and produced by Mark Dodson, with Terry Date engineering. It was the last record made by the band's classic lineup of David Wayne, Kurdt Vanderhoof, Craig Wells, Duke Erickson and Kirk Arrington, and it is widely treated as an essential thrash metal album. The songs deal in assassination, ritual and the supernatural: "Line of Death" drew on the Libyan hostilities in the Gulf of Sidra, while the title track strands its narrator overnight in a house with something trying to drag him to hell. "Watch the Children Pray" became their power ballad and video. The album is dedicated to METALLICA's Cliff Burton, who died nine days before its release.
