Hallowed Ground by Violent Femmes

Hallowed Ground, the Violent Femmes' second album, came out on Slash in 1984, and anyone expecting more of the straight-ahead folk rock of the debut got a shock. Like the first record, it's built mostly from songs Gordon Gano wrote back in high school, but this time the Milwaukee trio, Gano on guitar and vocals, Brian Ritchie on bass and Victor DeLorenzo on drums, went stark and strange, closer to a haunted backwoods revival meeting than a party.

"Country Death Song", which Gano wrote during his high school classes, is a gruesome tale in the old folk tradition of songs about horrors, and "It's Gonna Rain" rolls in like a hellfire sermon. Gano meant his Christian lyrics sincerely, though plenty of listeners at the time mistook them for irony, and the record split fans and critics right down the middle.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.