After almost ten years of releasing only splits and EPs — and not really wanting to become a real band at all – Cleveland’s cult metal band Midnight have finally succumbed to a full-length job, and it’s the genuine article, man. Led by Athenar, the same freak responsible for the brew-fueled madness that was Boulder, Midnight don executioner hoods, worship flame and steel, and rip through ten songs (eleven if you have the vinyl) of black metal thrash so absurdly good you’ll be reawakening neck muscles that have been retired since the early 80s. It’s clear that Midnight’s mission is annihilation, which they deliver to you, like a shitty 2 AM pizza, in thirty minutes or less, and despite the fact that Satanic Royalty is dripping with Venom inspired evil violence, its really powered by a degenerate biker rawk Athenar has no doubt borrowed from his Boulder days. Thus, every song, especially “You Can’t Stop Steel,” “Lust, Filth and Sleaze,” and “Shock ’til Blood,” sound like Cronos leading Motörhead on a black-winged ride outta hell and straight up your ass. Anyone who has stuck by Midnight over the years waiting for this day to come can go ahead and raise their gauntlets high. As for the uninitiated, prepare to be outright dominated by pure metal riff-itude.
On their self-titled full-length debut, San Francisco’s Hazzard’s Cure bruise and belch their way through a fungal-covered forest on the backs of corpse boars, spears poised to strike the life from those they pursue. Their rabid, sporadic approach to the hunt is propelled by a steady stream of heavy metal buggery; bastard forms of sludge, hardcore, death, doom, speed, and thrash not only occupy the album as a whole but often appear within the same song, and the songs themselves (which range from three to ten minutes in length) run together like the warm blood of their prey. This kind of unfocused racket is often the battle cry of the drunk and stoned, and there’s no doubt that’s the case here, but while songs like “Meet Me at the Mountain” and “Great Dishonor” were born in the bottom of bongs and bottles, “Psilocybin” and “Wolves’ Banquet” are pure mosh pit fodder. But then there’s “Tossed and Dethroned,” “Clashing of Hordes,” and “Prayer of the Hunted,” all of which sound like Mastodon, Black Breath, and Viking Skull trading riffs inside a burning church, and you decide once and for all that there’s no use trying to figure it out because it’s just plain ol’ fucking metal.
In the spirit of brevity — or laziness, if you prefer — I’m going to go back to something I wrote awhile ago and give it a face-lift for the sake of this review (if you want to read the original version of this passage, go here):
You know, as far as I’m concerned, if you sound exactly like Black Sabbath you are doing something right, so keep on with yo’ nocturnal self, ’cause Black Sabbath are the pinnacle of doom and metal. Stealing their crooked staff for your midnight stroll through the graveyard of evil is hardly a crime. In fact, it’s a noble thing to do. The truth of the matter is, any band worth their salt will have elements of The Stooges, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath, or AC/DC in their music.
Right, so on their debut full-length, Capricorn, San Francisco’s Orchid present us with an album full o’ witchy-riffed psych-blues that, had it been recorded in 1969, would be the subject of the first chapter of all tomes concerning the history of heavy metal. I mean, not only does the music sound like Iommi shit it out himself from atop a moss-covered tower, but the song titles read like a stoned Sabbath freak got a hold of some fridge magnet poetry at a party; dig “Eyes Behind the Wall,” “Black Funeral,” “Masters of it All,” “Cosmonaut of Three,” and “Electric Father” for the most obvious examples. Their 2009 EP, Through the Devil’s Doorway, made a lot of hay, but Capricorn has blown the gates of the void wide open, and is a swirling tempest of dark mastery and cosmic wizardry in spite of the familiar force of its headwinds. Or perhaps because of it.
Check out the video for “Cosmonaut of Three” from Capricorn!
Midnight
Hazzard’s Cure
Orchid