Christian metal veterans BARREN CROSS commemorate their 30th Anniversary by releasing their first new album in 18 years, Birth Pangs. Recorded live at the 2012 Elements of Rock Festival in Switzerland, Birth Pangs captures the entire Barren Cross performance in encompassing 18 songs and over an hour and a half of music.

The album, which reunites the original line-up of vocalist Michael Drive (Lee), guitarist Ray Parris, bassist Jim LaVerde and drummer Steve Whitaker, saw a digital download release on December 21st, 2013. The group plans a CD release for February of this year, and is selling the CDs via pre-order from their website here.

Commented Drive: “I personally have never been as excited over an album in its performance as I am with Birth Pangs. I would like for every Barren Cross fan to own this, they must hear it. I feel stronger about this concerning Birth Pangs than any other album we have ever released!”

Birth Pangs draws its material from each of the four Barren Cross studio albums in addition to including two new songs and a third previously unreleased.

Birth Pangs tracklisting:

'Living Dead'

'Stage Of Intensity'

'Close To The Edge'

'The Unsuspecting'

'Two Thousand Years'

'Return Of The Light'

'Believe'

'Light The Flame'

'He Loves You'

'Dying Day'

'Bigotry Man'

'Here I Am'

'A Walk With God'

'Whitewashed Love'

'Rattle Your Cage'

'Deadlock'

'Cultic Regimes'

'Killers'

Samples from the new album can be found here.

For more information and updates go to the official Barren Cross Facebook page.