Metanoia

Metanoia was a Christian metal band that originated from Townsville, Queensland, Australia. The band formed in 1990 but disbanded in 1999-2000. The main members of the band consisted of husband and wife Steve (Guitars) and Lisa Bennett (Bass) and vocalist/later to be son-in-law, Justin "Yowie" Smith.
Metanoia was started by Steve Bennett with a vision of reaching the youth that were involved in heavy metal and would never step into a church. The aim was to deliver a positive message of the love of God.
Steve Bennett started this venture singing and soon realized that the other musicians did not have the same vision. Steve started teaching himself guitar at the ripe old age of 26 in 1986. He needed a bass player, so his wife, Lisa, was handed a bass guitar and with some gentle persuasion she started learning.
In 1990 Metanoia recorded a demo in their lounge room and that was the start to bigger things. In late 1994, Metanoia recorded the 'Screaming Fetus' demo and started to send it around. Metanoia was voted in the top 20 unsigned bands in Australia by the Australian magazine "Hot Metal". In 1995 Metanoia recorded its heaviest music ever in the demo 'Akeldama', these songs also ended up on the Rowe compilation 'Raise The Dead'. Soon after this Steve Rowe made contact with Metanoia and signed a three album contract with Rowe Productions.
Songs in the early years were written exclusively by Steve Bennett. Over the next few years they began looking for other influences in order to create a different and diverse feel to their music. Steve Sparrow joined Metanoia and his musical influence helped form their sound. They experimented with the drop d tuning for the song 'I Fear No One'. It sounded so good that many of their songs were recorded with
that tuning.
In October, 1999, the band headed down south to play at Australia's premier Christian event, 'Blackstump', a four day music and teaching festival. They played with bands like Mortification, Retlaw, Audio Adrenalin, Callus, Day Of Atonement, Bean Bag, and Dependant just to name a few. This was their fourth Blackstump and 3rd in a row, their first being back in 1991.
The band plays a mix of death, black, punk, thrash, classic, speed, groove etc. They prefer to be known as an 'Extreme' metal band.
Metanoia is a Greek word meaning "change of mind". Yet the full meaning is somewhat more. In the New Testament, the word metanoia is often translated as "repentance". But this kind of repentance is not about regret or guilt or shame; it implies making a decision to turn around, to face a new direction.