The metal gods would have been shocked. Shamed even. Who would have thought Christian bands would ever be headlining otherwise-secular hard rock tours?

If they had been at the House of Bricks in Des Moines on Sunday, their hisses would have been heard at the thought of ripe youngsters throwing their fists up to the screams of some Jesus-lovers rather than the Dark Lord. But it definitely wasn’t a “Christian concert.”

With both the penultimate performer, Eighteen Visions, and Underoath having released new albums within the last week, there was plenty of new material to be heard for fans of the groups. “They’re Only Chasing Safety” marks the first Underoath release since the departure of the band’s lead vocalist, Dallas Taylor, nearly one year ago. There’s no better way than a live performance in front of longtime fans to put a new sword to the test of battle. Though new frontman Spencer Chamberlain’s hair probably had more volume than his small frame, an intimidating stage presence wasn’t needed to fill the large shoes of his predecessor. What size he lacked he made up for with volumes of consistent screams.

Scenesters may bicker about what style of music Underoath plays or ought to play, and they’re free to create new subgenres ’til they’re blue in the face. Even in its lighter moments, Underoath was capable of fueling the critical crowd with electronica-laced beats and precise, heavy instrumentation.

Large mosh pits are hard to find these days except in metal shows. But every pit still has one or two human tornadoes of flailing fists, and this show was no exception. Still, it’s not at every rock show that one can see a moshing break dancer. In the small club, at least one super-pumped-up young man, complete with a pink headband and camo shorts combo, showed his b-boy style cartwheeling skills.

It’s beautiful to watch kids leapfrog to the stage every time they anticipate a part of a song that begs for their two screams worth in the singer’s mic. Cigarette smoke in the low-ceiling venue and alcohol in the hands of the crowd was sparse, which may mean it will be a few more years before straight-edgers get the X tattoos removed from their hands.

Pop-punk kids and hardcore kids alike were present for the performance, showing that the cliques in Des Moines indeed can come together once in a while. The crowd was fed a consistent diet of high-energy hardcore, sometimes more melodic than others, for hours. With a 40-minute set limit for each band, the show ended with at least an hour of sunlight left in the night at 9 p.m. sharp.

One rule of the stage, certainly not new to those familiar with this breed of rock, seemed to be that if you could understand the words being sung, the band wasn’t screaming hard enough. As veiled as Underoath’s message may be, and as much as it may piss off fundamentalist Christian colleges for promoting inherently evil metalheads, the band goes to show that a Christian band isn’t necessarily a bad band. Hey, it can even be idolized by Satan worshippers.