Archive for the ‘album reviews’ Category
Satan “Atom By Atom” Album Review (2015)
Satan have returned again with a new offering for 2015 on Listenable Records entitled “Atom By Atom” and it’s everything you’d expect after 2013’s Life Sentence.
This album rolls hard from beginning to end and proves once again that the guitar duo of Steve Ramsey and Russ Tippins is damn near untouchable. Brian Ross’ vocals are on point and his patented high wails are ever prominent in all the right places. After their Richmond, VA show in 2013, my friend asked Brian how he’s maintained his voice so well since “Court In the Act”. Brian simply replied with, “It’s my job.” And he still does it well.
“Atom By Atom” features 10 tracks and one thing I’ve noticed is that this album seems a bit darker lyrically than their last album and even “Court In the Act”.
Let’s go track by track:
- Farewell Evolution – The album opens with Brian’s falsetto, and lyrically tackles the lack of critical thinking in modern society.
- Fallen Saviour – “Some still believed that he’d return to save them”. I think you can figure out the rest of the sentiment here. I love the guitar solos in this one.
- Ruination – This is one of my favorites on the album so far. The combination of the riffs and rhythm section matched with Ross’ descending vocal pattern just makes for a clean song.
- The Devil’s Infantry – Sean Taylor and Graeme English open this one with a marching pattern. Lyrically what you’d think based on the title. It all works so perfectly. The breakdown/transition mid-song is killer.
- Atom By Atom – The opening riff on this gives me chills. “Out to get you, atom by atom.” You can hear Russ’ distinctive vocals in that part and it just sounds wonderful. The solos are both crushing as well.
- In Contempt – What Satan album would be complete with a song dealing with judgement? No worries here. You got it and shan’t be disappointed!
- My Own God – Brian lays it out in this one with, “I am my own God, I made myself, broke the mold, life is what I make it, I will not be told.”
- Ahriman – Lyrically dealing with Zoroastrianism, of which I am not too familiar. Great song though. Love the backing vocals in the chorus.
- Bound In Enmity – This is a total fist pumper. Riffs and licks for days.
- The Fall of Persephone – Final track on the record. A bit of a slow roller and took a few extra listens to warm up to completely. English has some great bass licks that really stand out. This one clocks in at almost 7 minutes and has several parts. The dueling guitar solos are perfect.
I really cannot praise this album enough. It’s everything I expected and more and I can’t wait to get a physical copy in my hands and especially can’t wait to catch them live again. If I could give only one critical opinion about this album, it would be in the drum production, mainly the snare. On much of the album it’s just a bit too bright but really doesn’t detract from Sean’s solid playing or from the album itself.
Long live Satan and thanks to Listenable Records for letting me review this!
10/10!
Satan are:
Brian Ross
Russ Tippins
Steve Ramsey
Graeme English
Sean Taylor
l-r: English, Taylor, Tippins, Ramsey, Ross
Satan – Life Sentence Album Review
Growing up in a house where I had parents who weren’t so keen on me listening to heavy metal, I had to be careful of what I brought 
home to listen to. Certainly a band called Satan wasn’t going to do me any favors with mom, no matter that the band wasn’t “satanic” at all. I believe I had an unmarked dubbed tape version for years which got me through my teens.
Satan’s full length debut, Court in the Act, came out in 1983 and it didn’t grace my ears probably until about 1984 or 1985 after Metal Blade Records picked the album up for USA distribution. To be straightforwardly honest, Court in the Act is probably my favorite NWOBHM release ever, Iron Maiden’s back catalog notwithstanding. The album was perfect, mainly because of the clean vocal stylings of Brian Ross. Easily one of my favorite singers of all time. After Brian left, they followed up with 2 other releases, Into the Future and Suspended Sentence, and to be honest I thought they were terrible. Looking back, it was the new vocalist that killed it for me.
Court has remained in steady rotation for the last 25+ years and will continue to be. A year or so ago new came out that Satan was reuniting with the original lineup to record a new album. To say I was hesitant about hearing a new album by a band that hadn’t done anything in almost 30 years is an understatement. Typically reunion albums suck.
Satan’s 2013 release entitled Life Sentence, however, does not suck. Not in the least. To be truthful, this album is pretty stellar. I finally picked it up last week and have listened to it at least 4 times.
Ross’ vocals sound great and not over-produced or “fixed”. The album as a whole has a very raw sound. Very natural and a perfect followup to Court. Sure, Brian’s no spring chicken now and hitting those sweet high notes like he used to do isn’t really possible, but it doesn’t detract to a great vocal performance on Life Sentence.
The whole album just sounds like Satan should. Clean, powerful, melodic. True NWOBHM. The songs are catchy and memorable. I am 
quite pleasantly surprised as to how good the album is. Time to Die, Twenty Twenty Five, Tears of Blood and Another Universe are the standout tracks for me. If I had to pick a least favorite, it would be the title track, Life Sentence. Not a bad song by any means, but just didn’t grab my ear like the rest of the album.
That being said, if you’re even a minor fan of Court in the Act, get Life Sentence ASAP. You shall not be disappointed.
9/10
Power Trip – Manifest Decimation (2013) Album Review
Having seen Power Trip several times since FUNFUNFUN fest 2010, I had always wanted a full length album from them. Thanks to Southern Lord Records, I got my wish.
Power Trip take me back to quality mid-to-late 80s thrash…Nuclear Assault, Devastation, a little Slayer…and thankfully, I don’t hear any Pantera (Panterrible) influence. A lot of folks mention the DRI crossover punk/hardcore thing, but I never really listened to any of that so I cannot say for sure. I may hear a little Cro Mags, though. And I do like the Cro Mags. This young band from Dallas does it right. It’s high quality thrash and unlike many of the screamo shit mall hot topic metal bands out there today, these guys play guitar solos. You heard me. GUITAR SOLOS! Good ones, too.
I bought this CD (yes, a CD) last week and have spun it at least 10 times now. I absolutely love it. If you’re into classic thrash, I highly recommend this band. There are a lot of newer retro thrash bands out there, but I think Power Trip is a cut above them all.
While I like Riley’s singing style, I think they could have been produced a little better. They are washed in the mix too much for my tastes. But it’s not much of a detraction from the overall vibe and sound of this album. I also don’t think there are any songs worth skipping on here. It works perfectly beginning to end. The album runs through quickly and can easily be played through twice.
9/10 – Enjoy!
The Black Crowes Concert Review, Austin, TX 4/27/2013
It was 1990 and The Black Crowes were all over the radio and rightfully so. Shake Your Money Maker went multi-platinum. I’m a big fan of their first 3 and like a handful of songs from 3 Snakes and a Charm and By Your Side, but they lost me throughout the 2000s. In 1990 and 1991 I was drumming for a country band because I couldn’t find a metal band that played what I wanted to play. The country band had She Talks to Angels in the setlist regularly and I think we did Hard To Handle a few times as well…of course with a country twang to it. It was an enjoyable gig and I was making decent money as we were the house band in a club for quite a while.
For whatever reason I had never seen them live. It always seemed like something came up that had me miss them. Finally last night I got to see them and it was worth the wait. The brothers Robinson were on their game last night for the sold out show at Stubb’s in Austin, TX. I had been watching the setlists from this current tour and they do like Cheap Trick where every night is a different list. That’s really cool and tough to do, but it keeps the band fresh and they were fresh last night.
About 4 songs into the set it started to rain a little and I looked at the radar on my phone and saw that a huge storm was coming through so I went and stood under an awning. Then the bottom fell out. some folks crowded under the awnings where they could, some just left soaking wet but the majority of the crowd just stood there in the rain. And it kept raining heavily. I couldn’t see the band from where I was but I could hear them perfectly and it was still great. When the lightning started, the band was apparently advised to cut it short. They did an encore of 2 songs and that was it, unfortunately 30 minutes short. Right after it ended, the rain stopped. I met up with some friends who were also there and carried on with our night. One friend I ran into said that they were surprised that I was a fan of the Crowes. For me the explanation is easy. While I’m not a big fan of the blues and bluesy rock, I am a Rolling Stones fanatic and The Black Crowes remind me of them so much. For me it just seems natural to like them.
Fun show. I look forward to their next trip to town.
Ignitor Mix Tape ’85 Review
My history with Ignitor isn’t that deep as I only picked up on them when Jason McMaster joined the band in 2009ish. That doesn’t detract from the Erika Tandy era at all, I just went backwards with their discography. Ignitor is quality metal, no matter which era you’re listening to.
Ignitor’s latest offering is a download only album of classic covers. It’s a great mix of classic metal covering some of my favorites bands.
McMaster was made to cover all of these bands giving them his unique vocal flair and Ignitor in general stayed pretty true to these songs without taking any real liberties in the music. The Stuart “Batlord” solos are all pretty incredible and the opening solo to Into the Coven gave me chills when I first heard it. He completely nailed the tone. While I admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Exodus’ Bonded By Blood or Exciter’s Violence and Force, these covers are well done. I’m especially impressed with their version of Anthrax’s Deathrider. Fistful of Metal often gets overlooked in Anthrax conversations. The cover of Highway Star has the proper intro like Deep Purple’s original and the heaviness of Metal Church’s version. I’m also a huge fan of Witching Hour. And you gotta love that album cover!
You can stream the album here and I recommend that you buy it from iTunes or Amazon ASAP! Both are under $8!
Quality metal covers from a quality metal band.
“DEATHRIDER” – Anthrax
“FAST AS A SHARK” – Accept
“VIOLENCE AND FORCE” – Exciter
“INTO THE COVEN” – Mercyful Fate
“WITCHING HOUR” – Venom
“HELL BENT FOR LEATHER” – Judas Priest
“A LESSON IN VIOLENCE” – Exodus
“HIGHWAY STAR” – Deep Purple
The Metal Files 
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