Hey everybody, Satan’s Satyrs have a new album out, entitled ‘Die Screaming’. That's not the one I’m reviewing here. Instead today, I want to talk about their debut, ‘Wild Beyond Belief!’, which was recorded back in 2011, and got a UK release last year on Bad Omen Records.

I’ll confess that when I saw the band’s name and the cover artwork pop up on record shop update emails, I did an “oh-for-gods-sake” eyeroll and moved on. I mean, theoretically it’s the kind of stuff I love forever without question, but I dunno… hitching a ride on all this exploitation/biker movie imagery just seems so *obvious* in this day and age, and I guess I’ve just been burned too many times by all these second-rate, shlock horror-themed bands. (Anyone want an Acid Witch CD? – you pay the postage.) I mean, maybe it was campy surf music, maybe it was sloppy metal, but if they’re gonna put so little imagination into their visual presentation, so little weirdness or mystery, I really just don’t care. NEXT!

Bad move on my part. Because as it turns out, ‘Wild Beyond Belief!’ represents an absolute riot in the middle of a fire-storm of total, heartfelt rock n’ roll of a rare and beautiful kind. The sort of record that rocks so hard, when you put it on you start to worry that maybe it’s speeding up your heartrate and making you short of breath. Like it’s all just a bit too much, like maybe you’re too old and unfit to safely stand in the presence of this level of rocking-ness? It’s been a while since music made me feel like that (at least not in a good way), but the A side of this thing is like being forced to ride a rollercoaster against your will, and that’s usually an immediate sign of quality when it comes to rock music, right?

The album title and cover art, which I initially took to be the work of cynical grown ups taking the path of least resistance, takes on an entirely new complexion when you reconsider it as the home recorded debut of a nineteen year old kid from the town of Herdnon, Virginia, who, according to this interview with The Quietus, tracked all the instruments himself and then mixed the whole damn thing at home on headphones, because ‘if you want something done right..’ etc. His oft-repeated twin inspirations: Electric Wizard and Black Flag. His available resources: a ferocious, perfectionist talent, insane reserves of teenage energy and (one assumes) a head full of raging, twisted hormones.

The result: ‘Wild Beyond Belief!’. Forty something minutes of pure heavy metal nirvana. If you’re listening on the computer, you’ll probably have to turn it up real loud because it’s really badly recorded with loads of compression and stuff, but WHY WOULDN’T YOU HAVE TURNED IT UP REAL LOUD ANYWAY, FERCHRISSAKE? What kind of a loser are you… ahem.

Anyway. Wow, just wow. This shit sounds like… well… I dunno. Imagine Motorhead or High On Fire or a band like that, if, instead of seasoned professionals, they were just a bunch of delinquent teenagers living in the middle of nowhere making lo-fi punk. And imagine that they drank a bunch of beer one day, and got really psyched up talking about horror movies and stuff, then scampered into the practice room to record a tape solely for the purpose of sending it to the guy from Electric Wizard, in the hope that he’d really like it and invite them to tour with them. So they filled it with MASSIVE RIFFS, and growly, strangulated tough guy vocals, and motorbike noise, shouting about Satan, and sickly, wah-wah covered lead overdubs, laughing and shredding all the way until they collapsed in exhaustion. Well yeah, that’s kinda what this sounds like. And in case you haven’t got the point yet, it sounds AMAZING.

Often, when it gets too ‘professional’ and serious, metal just loses me. When it’s all technical, and ‘conceptual’, and endlessly pummelling; boring and headache-y. I much prefer it when it’s like this, stuck in its most “primitive” stage of development - a raging cacophony of teenage lunacy, bluntly filtered through the most obvious and stupid signifiers of ‘rebellion’ that come to hand.

Even with the all horror movie stuff, I mean… there’s a *very fine line* between bands who seem to pick up on this sort of thing just for a shtick, so they have a readymade fanbase and don’t have to think too hard about their lyrics and artwork, and those who really *get it* - those who sound like they understand the mad, intoxicating power of these movies and really want to try to capture it in their music. The sort of people who, if they could, would probably inject the pure, distilled essence of Werewolves on Wheels straight into their veins. You can probably guess which side of that line I feel that Satan’s Satyrs come down on, in spite of this album’s amateurish cover art. His Satanic Majesty Jus Osborn obviously agreed, as he has now actually drafted Satyrs main man Clayton Burgess in to play bass in Electric Wizard, no less! When the aforementioned Quietus interview was conducted, Mr. Burgess was happily hanging out in Dorset, enjoying “..movie marathons at the ‘Wizard house”. High five dude - that’s what I call a result.

‘Wild Beyond Belief!’ isn’t a perfect record. As mentioned, the murky recording quality will prove troublesome for some, and it’s a very front-loaded album too. Whilst each track on the first half is an absolute ripper, momentum and quality control tends to slip *slightly* through parts of the B-side. It still rules though… actually, forget this stupid, nit-picking paragraph – on reflection, every cut here except maybe the self-titled last one is just completely fantastic, and even that one’s *pretty good*. Actually, who am I kidding, it’s BRILLIANT. Fuck this ‘critical balance’ business, this IS a perfect album. There, I said it. Chances are you’ll know within the first five seconds of the first track whether you’re IN or OUT, and if the former, after that it’s all just gravy. If you still want to hear the spirit of white, suburban delinquent rock music alive and well in the 21st century, refined right down to its stupidest, most degraded, most invigorating form, well… this is it, right here. Bang your greasy locks and gorge yourself ‘til your brain is gone.

Listen on Youtube.

Buy from Bad Omen.

Visit Satan’s Satyrs on Bandcamp.

Also, check out their 'Lucifer Lives' EP - Venom-tastic!

Labels: album reviews, METAL, Satan's Satyrs