On the 25th day of the 12th month of 2012, the Six-Tongued Hellgoat was summoned to arise from the ashes and bring darkness to this place called POPdose. Join him in his quest.
Ritual Thrust into the Profane Maw of Churning Filth
Album: Satan, Life Sentence
Label: Listenable
Release: May 21, 2013
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 10/10
Saliva everywhere. All six-tongues thrashing about like crazy. The Hellgoat bows down to master Satan. Wait, this isn’t the real Satan?
The Hellgoat feels a little duped as he’s tricked very easily sometimes but he really thought this might be from Satan himself since it’s a virtually perfect album. Let’s face it, when you name your band Satan, you best bring it hard, every motherfucking day. And that they do.
Yeah folks, this is the same Satan that brought you one of the greatest slabs of NWOBHM in existence, 1983’s Court in the Act. After that, they would change their name to Blind Fury, then back to Satan, then to Pariah, then break up, then reunite as Pariah, then break up again, reunite in 2004 to play some shows as Satan and then come back in 2011 with the current form. Whew.
One look at the album cover, with pretty much the same look as the artwork for Court in the Act and you get a clear idea of what to expect inside. But even so, no one prepared the Hellgoat for this perfect of an album. The lineup from that classic album is back in full for Life Sentence, including the fantastic vocals of Brian Ross and it’s like they never split up (or branched into 2500 other formations at least).
From the moment the Hellgoat heard the first real riff at :25 of the opening track “Time To Die,” he was clear the type of disc he was going to get. Blistering, rifftastic and totally fierce through and through. Between that, the amazing soloing in “Testimony,” the jagged riffs in “Tears of Blood” and the machine gun drumming in “Another Universe,” from start to finish, Life Sentence is exactly what a metal record should be. If this was released right after Court in the Act, these would have went down as one of the best one-two punches in the history of metal, without a doubt. Twenty years later though, it plays like a sequel to that disc which is good enough.
Satan really couldn’t have picked a better time for this record either. With all these new bands cropping up playing music influenced directly by the NWOBHM movement and ’70s rock riffs they are bringing this classic sound back into the spotlight again. However, this is really the first time the Hellgoat has heard an album by a group that lived through the era, make a better new LP than the young guys. If you haven’t figured this out yet, the Hellgoat isn’t going to dance around this any longer. Not only is Life Sentence even better than the classic Court in the Act but it’s leaps and bounds better than any record released in 2013 so far. Seriously, by a wide fucking margin. Devastating brilliance here.
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