Satanic Doomadelica

Our ever-lovin’ HMO sent me this UK magazine compilation from Metal Hammer issue #241. Um, I didn’t exactly hear a whole lot that was Satanic, or Doom, but lots that was psychedelic so… hey, what do I know? Let’s get in there and get us some!

Bloody Hammers’ Witch Of Endor is a fun track, heavy on the bottom end and with a simple and crunchy riff. It has quiet verse, loud chorus not unlike a lot of the 90s nu-metal thing. Ruby The Hatchet (great name!) give us Wicked Ones, which has a really raw sound and it chugs along. Nice to hear a lady represent – her vocals fit the song perfectly, riding above the fuzz guitars nicely. The Witches Drum’s Climb Aboard The Bus Of Devotion has a really silly song name, but it’s funky enough. I kept waiting for the repetitive riff to change and it finally does get bigger (briefly) at 2:40, and again much later, but it’s just a louder version of the same thing… I mean, this is a 7 minute track, so I think maybe the point here is to let the song space you out.

Swilson’s Cool Skull is another fuzzed out rocker, stomping along nicely. It’s very reminiscent of… oh, only every garage rock band in the past 20 years. Cool. The lyrics are kind of silly high school evil stuff, but whatever. Cool track. Oh, and the track cuts off abruptly, so either it’s an error in the comp mix, or the original CD goes straight into the next song and there’s no way to separate them neatly. From Beyond’s tune One Year is a fairly blatant rip-off (er, homage) to Sabbath. It’s all I can hear. This is a 9 minute track, and it does have a big, crashing ending, but I can’t help wondering why bother. Next!

Zig Zags’ Scavenger is a fun rocker, somewhere in the middle between punk and metal. Now, punk would’ve ended this track by 2:30 at the latest, not 4:30 like this one does, so it’s a bit of both. I liked this song. The gloriously-named Black Pussy is next, with a tune called Blow Off Some Steam, which picks its sound and stays there. Fairly basic fuzz rawk that I’d have loved in 1996. Iron Witch’s Death Was The Colour mixes heavy guitars with screaming punk vocals at half-speed. There’s a big feedback waste-of-space in the middle, but the song gets more satisfying when it takes off at 3:41. Long time to wait.

The Well’s Act II reminds me of a mid-tempo Fu Manchu track. There’s a funky bit at 3:25, and it speeds up at 4:25 (shoulda been 4:20, probably). I liked it well enough. White Slavery’s La Douche (Cold) is yet another mid-tempo riff-rock tune. I’m waiting for one of these bands in the mix to shake up this sound. At least this one’s only 2:40. Ice Dragon gives us Hexagon Riders, which sounds like a Jimi Hendrix Experience track that beens droned out and without the guitar pyrotechnics and with Ozzy-inspired vocals that sound like they were recorded with the singer at the bottom of a well, but the microphone was at the the top of the well.

Let’s pause here for station identification (YOUR KMA LOVES YOU, THANKS FOR TUNING IN), and a note that I’m noticing a real resurgence in 70s sound from all of these bands. Guys, please. Stop. Go forward, not back! Do something new! That’s what the bands you’re emulating did!

Ahem. We now return you to your regularly scheduled KMA Review.

Druganaut’s Old Red is next. Finally, a more promising track with some real lift and life to it! The guitars are still fuzzed out, and the vocals are a cross between Rob Zombie and Lemmy, but at least it’s got effort in it. Nice! Owl’s Demon Ride wastes over a minute with weirdo talking at the start. When the band comes in, it’s total 70s rawk. Our local animal-themed rock radio station would love it. It’s fun enough, I’d say. And if you skip the yapping at the start, it’s a satisfying 1:45 long! Windhand offers up Heap Wolves, which is a slow sludge of screaming and down-tuned guitars. It’s heavy, but it really does plod like a slow Sabbath tune. And finally it’s Demonaut (not to be concerned with Druganaut, above, apparently) with Falling In to Hell. Its siren-like intro becomes a truly satisfying heavy metal chugger. The vocals are screamed, of course, but whomever should have put this track first, by virtue of the song itself and by its title. Anyway, one of the better tracks here, saved for last!

And there we have it. I am very grateful to our HMO Scott for sending this on! I would never have heard (or heard of) any of these bands without it! I think, overall, the mix stands up if you’re looking for stoner-space-out fuzz rawk/metal. I didn’t get much that was satanic out of it (except for a few bands’ oh-so-evil lyrics), and I think Doom is stretching it a bit, but like I said at the top: What do I know? Thanks heaps, Scott!

***NB: I have just tagged this post with both “Black Pussy” and “White Slavery,”  because they are two band names from this mix of songs. If you found this site by Googling any combination of those terms and are disappointed that all you found was an unprofessional music review, sorry about that. Back to the Googles you go…