How many of you saw the Metallica movie? It’s worth watching, especially since it comes loaded with nerdly delights for the metal faithful — not the least of which was getting an IMAX 3D look at James Hetfield’s battle jacket. Before I double-digress into a plot summary I’ll just spit it out: James has a sick Satan patch on his breast pocket, proving our one time lord and metallic savior still has fantastic taste after all these years. Speaking of years: Satan released only two albums in the mid-’80s and were never hugely successful. But those records — holy shit. They used lead guitars differently than anyone before or since, chasing circles around the song without succumbing to excess, launching off at strange, squirrelly angles only to return to fall in line with a vocal harmony. I could nerd out over the guitars forever: one song on the new record has a quick shred break that sounds like Richard Thompson covering Van Halen, wiry and fiery at the same time. One of the hallmarks of a good Satan song is that you never know where it’s going — bridges are unpredictable, choruses make no sense on paper but come alive on tape. The debut, Court In the Act , holds up as one of the best of the classic NWOBHM albums, on par with untouchables like the self-titled Angel Witch debut, but weirder and more inventive than most anything their peers were doing. After struggling for a few albums with a band name that never quite fit the music, they tried a few unsuccessful name changes before hanging it up. The various members went in different directions ; singer Brian Ross and drummer Sean Taylor split off to play in Blitzkrieg, and guitarist Steve Ramsey and bassist Graeme English started a little band called Skyclad. The legacy of Satan lay dormant for years, until now. Life Sentence skirts every expectation for a reunion record by continuing exactly where they left off, with the entire original lineup showing up smarter and sharper than ever, with a stronger batch of songs. Purists will argue, because that’s what purists do, but Life Sentence is not just the best traditional metal album of the year, it’s probably the best album of Satan’s career. Follow that point to its conclusion and this may well be one of the best NWOBHM releases ever. Yet, like everything that came before, nowhere near enough people will hear it.
–Aaron [LISTEN]