Reliquary: Unearthing Where It All Began
 

Before there was Acre, there was Crusader Clash — and before Defend Thy Faith, there was Testify.
 

In 2019, a band called Crusader Clash recorded Testify the way most bands start: raw, unpolished, and recorded wherever they could set up amps and a microphone. These weren't studio sessions with click tracks and endless takes — they were garage recordings, captured live and loud, with all the imperfection and immediacy that comes with a band still figuring out exactly what it wanted to sound like.
 

Two years later, after a dispute led the band to part ways with its original name, Crusader Clash became Acre — and in 2021, several of those early Testify tracks were reworked, re-recorded, and released as Defend Thy Faith, the band's first album under its new identity. It was the sound of the same songs, refined and reimagined for a new chapter.
 

But the original recordings never disappeared. Now, in 2026, we're bringing them back.
 

Reliquary is a re-release of the original 2019 Testify sessions — the raw, garage-recorded tracks exactly as Crusader Clash first laid them down, before the polish, before the name change, before Defend Thy Faith gave them a second life. For longtime fans, it's a chance to hear where these songs actually came from. For newer listeners, it's an origin story you can press play on.

A reliquary holds what came before — the artifacts of a history worth preserving. That's exactly what this release is: not a replacement for Defend Thy Faith, but a companion to it. The bones beneath the songs you already know.
 

Reliquary is available now.