The 4th Movement

After years of struggling with their independent hard rock band Death, a trio of Detroit brothers sought refuge in Vermont and experienced a spiritual rebirth that changed the course of their music and their lives, and gave birth to new band the 4th Movement. During the mid- to late '70s, Detroit-based brothers David, Dannis, and Bobby Hackney kept active with their energetic proto-punk group Death. The band worked completely independently in those early days, and by the end of the '70s they were exhausted, broke, and struggling with commercial failure. Seeking clarity, they decamped to a relative's home in Jericho, Vermont, and immediately all three were overtaken by a feeling of spiritual awakening. Though they had been raised in the Baptist Church, it was during this journey to Vermont that they began taking their faith seriously, and also when they decided to switch gears musically to reflect their newfound devotion. Still with David on guitar, Dannis on drums, and Bobby on bass and vocals, they rebranded themselves the 4th Movement and recorded two albums' worth of their new hard-edged Christian rock at a studio in Burlington, Vermont. Having never landed a recording contract in their early days, the brothers formed Tryangle Records to independently release the first Death single in 1976, and opted to reactivate the label for the independent release of the 4th Movement's self-titled debut LP in 1980. They pressed 1,000 copies of the album, going on to press a single in 1981 and sophomore effort, Totally, in 1982. Following that, David returned to Detroit and the other two brothers remained in Vermont, playing music more casually as life moved on. In 2009, Death's music would be exposed to a far-reaching audience when a documentary film about the band was released and an archival series began on Chicago indie label Drag City. Death re-formed (without David, who had died in 2000) and started playing and recording again. In 2018, Drag City reissued the 4th Movement's debut album, which had been long out of print and trading hands for high prices among collectors.
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