The amazing revival of NWOBHM veterans Satan continues and here they are with their fifth album after reforming in 2011 (and seventh overall). Songs In Crimson comes just two years after Earth Infernal and is another celebration of everything we love about this band. Before we dive deeper in the album, I have to stress that Satan is one of the very few legendary acts from the early Eighties with a completely authentic line-up. Russ Tippins, Steve Ramsey, Brian Ross, Graeme English and Sean Taylor are the very same guys who recorded the 1983 classic Court In The Act, not mentioning many other heavy metal milestones they participated in throughout their careers.
Now, if you are among our younger readers, only now discovering the genre, Satan are playing a style bordering on thrash and speed metal, with a heavy accent on the guitar attack, and topping it off with the highly melodic vocals of Brian Ross, which are in something of a contrast to the aggressive music, but it works well. Frantic Zero opens proceedings in ferocious tempo, with razor sharp guitars and riffs to die for. Ramsey and Tippins are outplaying each other and I have to say those two are one of the best guitar teams in metal, full stop. Songs like Whore Of Babylon and Sacramental Rites are overflowing with fantastic guitar parts, but at the same time are very melodic and balanced, attracting your attention from the first note and keeping it until the last.
Turn The Tide is a thrash/speed tornado, a headbanger’s wet dream, where the rhythm section of English and Taylor adds an even harder punch to the face. Curse In Disguise is very heavy, more mid-tempo, with several layers of guitar melodies and harmonies, Brian Ross commanding the seemingly chaotic riff storm into a metal masterpiece. The last song is the album’s title track, encapsulating into less than five minutes all the superlatives I already addressed. The song starts at a slower pace, with a middle-eastern mood and chorus melodies, before accelerating to another speed metal mayhem.
Satan have mastered their own brand of classic British metal to perfection and their style and aura are still unmistakable, after all these years. This is a band which didn’t reform in the new millennium to cash in from several festival appearances while releasing mediocre music, which sadly, is the case with quite a few of their contemporaries still being around. The case here is a contrasting opposite, with these new Satan albums not only deserving to bear the name and the logo, but offering their best music ever. It is hard to tell if Songs In Crimson is the crowning achievement in Satan’s discography, but if not, it’s damn close.
9,5/10
Songs In Crimson is out on September 13th via Metal Blade Records and can be ordered from HERE
