New Wave of British Heavy Metal legends Satan from Newcastle are about to release their first full-length album under the banner of Satan in 26 years, ever since their previous Suspended Sentence came out in 1987. That's long break for the band members from recording trademark riffs of once great Satan. Of course, the band members remained active between this long period releasing a couple of memorable heavy metal albums under another band name with slightly thrashier style, and afterwards doing gigs under banner of Satan in 2000s.
The upcoming album is called 'Life Sentence' and will be released tomorrow, 29th or April 2013, by a record label called Listenable Records. The record will feature a complete line-up from Satan's first full-length album Court In The Act:
- Brian Ross Vocals
- Steve Ramsey Guitars
- Russ Tippins Guitars
- Graeme English Bass
- Sean Taylor Drums
You can order the album from Listenable Records store
Satan - Life Sentence - Listenable Records Store
or from Amazon.com
Satan - Life Sentence - Amazon.com
(The new album cover art)
Also if you want to preview the album, there's currently a listening session up exclusively on Terrorizer Magazine. Check it out!
Satan and N.W.O.B.H.M. ?
Ever since from 1979 (most accurately) when Punk and Classic Heavy Metal together formed new musical 'direction' in United Kingdom, a movement or genre (which ever you prefer), called N.W.O.B.H.M. (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), the newborn genre that spawned out hundreds of bands out in UK between years of 1979-1985. A few releases later than that might even be considered to belong in the genre.
Most of the bands remained obscure releasing only few demos or 7" vinyl record, or perhaps one full album at the tops. A few bands managed to raise into popularity, of which the most known ones are Iron Maiden, Def Leppard... and perhaps followed with Tygers of Pan Tang, Angel Witch and Saxon.
Few of the bands that gained some reputation but didn't belong among the most popular ones, were for example Blitzkrieg, Cloven Hoof, Avenger...
Among those semi-popular bands in NWOBHM also stood Satan from Newcastle UK, formed in the first years of NWOBHM in 1979. Satan had all elements to stardom I believe, but they never broke through like Iron Maiden, while still highly respected band in old-school adoring heavy metal circles. Satan had memorable singer, Brian Ross (joined Blitzkrieg in 1985), who could match clean vocal range strength of Bruce Dickinson, and they also had powerful guitars playing out strong lead melodies in comparison with Maiden, but adding mode technical approach and even trashy edge at times to the mix. Satan was certainly one of those of the heavier ones among NWOBHM bands, who managed to mix catchy melodies with raw power and speed. Despite their name which could create image of some sort of totally brutal extreme metal, Satan was not heavy in the ways of extreme metal such as pure thrash or death metal. But in terms of NWOBHM, they were on the heavier edge. Not quite as raw and rough as Venom or TANK, though, but coming out with more insane melodies.
(Court In The Act album cover)
After four years of rehearsing and releasing demos (two of them and one single) between 1979-1982, Satan released two full length albums: Court in The Act (1983) and Suspended Sentence (1987, different vocalist called Michael Jackson -- no, not the one!), and one oddity of an album under different band name called Blind Fury in 1985 which was titled as Out Of Reach (with Lou Taylor in vocals). Both Satan albums and the one under name Blind Fury are definitely releases that you should check out if you like British 80s heavy metal or any bands mentioned so far.
After returning as Satan in 1987 and releasing Suspended Sentence, guitarists Tippins and Ramsey decided to change name once again into Pariah. Perhaps reason for the name change was changes in musical direction. Pariah took the band into more thrashy direction, whereas you could still hear the classic NWOBHM elements in the melodies. It was thrash with melodic touch inherited from their past works. Albums The Kindred and Blaze Of Obscurity were release in 1988 and 1989 with their most recent vocalist from Satan, Michael Jackson behind the mic -- after this a decade long break occurred (at which point another of the guitarists Steve Ramsey along with the bassist Graeme English went to form folk metal band Skyclad) and then third Pariah album Unity in came out 1998 with "new" drummer (Ian McCormack from 1982 Satan demo, ex-Battleaxe) and vocalist (Alan Hunter from Tysondog). Rest of the previous line-up remained intact, however. The last Pariah album was never that greatly received, but was considered rather mediocre.
After this Pariah name was buried and the band returned to the stage doing gigs with a live-lineup consisting original vocalist Brian Ross and original guitarist Russ Tippins. From original line-up also Sean Taylor was featured on drums and Graeme English on bass. It was not many years until second formed guitarist Steve Ramsey decided to join the newly formed Satan line-up too. Now after over a decade of doing gigs Satan is coming out with the new album 'Life Sentence' featuring original line-up from the first full length record Court in The Act!
-www.kultmetal.com | poster: dungeoncrawler
No comments:
Post a Comment