SatanWith few major labels willing to take risks on new and genre music, unless that music is new from a talent show or the genre is the shite that passes for R’n’B these days, it is always good when new labels come along that are willing to buck the populist trends of the mainstream. One such label is Bad Omen Records, and such a signing is Satan’s Satyrs. After re-issuing this American three piece’s first LP, ‘Wild Beyond Belief’, a whole new album swaggers forth in the form of ‘Die Screaming’.

Instrumental album opener ‘Thumper’s Theme’ sounds like it should play over the psychedelic titles of a groovy sixties detective series; think Our Man Flint in a Hammond Organ accompanied fist fight with The Avengers’ John Steed and you may well have the right mental image. This almost playful sound is initially built upon by the opening of ‘Instruments of Hellfire’, but swiftly kicked aside by a pounding beat, dirty MC5 style riff, and darkly trippy vocals, the initial colourful acid trip going suddenly dark, the guitar solo hearkening back to the proto-punk playing of the much lamented Ron Asheton. The band even have the balls and originality to finish the track with what sounds to my ears like a flourish of bongos! You might think that couldn’t work, but you’d be damn wrong in that respect. ‘Curse of the Corpse’ follows, mixing horror punk sensibilities with sleazy hook laden riffs, the production sounding suitably lo-fi and nasty.

Each track from the album sounds like it could be the title to a low budget seventies exploitation movie: ‘Black Souls’ with its sneering vocals and fist in your face delivery; ‘Show Me Your Skull’ with metallic riffs to get the head banging; and ‘One By One (They Die)’ with its doom laden beats all build up the atmosphere of horror, each track positively screaming to be played live in a sweat pit through vintage valve driven amps. Closing the album is title track ‘Die Screaming’, which at over twelve minutes allows the band to explore different tempos, opening with the slowest of psyche laden intros; as the tambourine rattled over the stark bass and drum beat, I half expected Jim Morrison to rise from the grave and chant his most LSD drenched poems. Instead organ and guitar build into a crashing wall of doom, a bleak backdrop to the anguished vocals. This band was chosen to guest for Electric Wizard at Roadburn in 2013, an accomplishment they clearly deserved, and with this new album they have upped their game even more. This is an album that has both immediate appeal, but with repeated listening gives up more and more. Satan’s Satyrs are definitely an act to catch.

(8/10 Spenny)

www.facebook.com/satanssatyrs