To find out whether you’re a real metalhead or not, give the opening track from Die Evil a blast at top volume. If the heads-down clatter and abyssal, delay-warped vocals of Raised On Sabbaths don’t immediately make you want to throw the horns, bang your head and give thanks and praise to the Omnipotent Goatlord then… well, you can work the rest out yourself.
Satan’s Wrath began as a defiant middle finger to the plastic sheen of modern metal and an impassioned homage to the glory days of Venom, Bulldozer and Mercyful Fate and, although the band’s third album is a noticeably less primitive affair than its predecessors, that devotion to shattering Christian skulls the old-school way still blazes within every lobotomised riff and malevolent bark.
Today’s post-metalcore ADHD contingent may dismiss songs as traditional and simple as Satanic War as an act of retrogressive elitism, but the reality is that Die Evil is a dark, violent and indecently thrilling heavy metal album and further evidence that the best ideas are timeless, unwavering and absolutely ripe for fresh plunder./o:p
