Episode 14 – Eternal Summer (right click to download)

Do you like it hot and steamy? Nonsense, of course you do! The songs we went with for this new SATAN MADE ME DO IT episode have one thing in common: warmness. So instead of reverb heavy thin guitar sounds and overall chilly Nordic black metal tracks expect songs so hot they’ll make you sweat like a hairy man in a sauna. That means this is generally a very freestyle episode. There’s thrash as you might have expected, but there’s also proto-metal, heavy metal, power metal and some blackened tunes.

Anything goes! Take you shirt off. Your pants too if you so wish. With SATAN MADE ME DO IT hell will never freeze over.

PLAY IT LOUD, beachgoers and party throwers! Another metalström is scheduled for September 19th.

Click for show notes and a complete tracklist.

Episode 14 – Eternal Summer

A funny thing happened while we were putting together this episode. Pretty much all the tracks had fantastic vocals. That’s definitely true about Incubus, whose 1988 “Serpent Temptation” album is quite honestly one of the best examples of perfect mix between thrash and death metal with added flavors. And you can tell it’s all really intentional. The drumming is of exquisite taste. It’s blazing fast, click-free and although there’s plenty of death metal inspired riffs the drummer mostly uses thrash beats. The vocals give everything a signature sound because he’s not actually growling like you would expect from a death metal band. You can understand everything being sang and the tone is great. Anyway, check this band out. They are criminally overlooked.

Antichrist, on the other hand, plays 100% thrash metal and it’s glorious. These swedes have been going at it for close to 10 years believe or not and we’re all still waiting for the second LP. Last year they released one of our favorite singles. Side A had the brilliant title track “Burned Beyond Recognition”, while side B had a cover from Croatian 80s cult speed metal band Evil Blood (they’re fucking great as well, so go! Listen!). We went with the cover. It’s double the fun! Ah, almost forgot: listen to that vocal work. Again, it’s brilliant!

We now travel all the way back to 1973 and play the opening track to Buffalo’s second album, “Volcanic Rock”. Buffalo is of course the classic Australian hard rock band that made things nice and heavy sounding after a more psych oriented first release. As you can hear, the production is warm and fuzzy, and once again the vocals deserve praise. Catchy chorus this one. “Someday, sunrise’s coming my way!”

Back to the 80s. Gotham City’s “Ravage in Time” is for all intents and purposes a hard rock track and it’s a mighty good one. But if you listen to their sole album “The Unknown” you’ll listen to more traditional sounding heavy metal songs, NWOBHM and even some epic stuff. A bit lost in time this one, but totally worth the effort. Next up is Manilla Road and holy shit should you play this one louder then everything else. Mark Shelton has a voice like no other. This guy should do motivational speeches for fucks sake! This is the band to listen if you care about fantasy/history/mythology-related lyrics.

Right from the start we knew two things: (1) that this episode would be called Eternal Summer, and (2) that we had to play the Celtic Frost track with the same name. We don’t even have to explain the merits of Celtic Frost. Those are more than clear by now. Just enjoy this one. We’ll do the same.

There wasn’t my much black metal in the United States in the 80s. We’ve talked about this before. NME did it. And they did it in style. It was very much Venom inspired (dude totally sounds like Cronos), just with a ton of feedback, extra rawness and double-extra power.  Nobody really did sound like them going forward (like they sounded in “Unholy Death” at least), which makes things all the more special. So if you enjoy things as ugly as a sin you got a friend in NME.

We got in touch with Sauron thanks to a Thrashing Rage mix and felt the band worked really well here. The spirit of the old German thrash bands is strong with this one, so feel free to go wild. The vocals are INCREDIBLE! Shouts to Brad (Nocturnal Cult Webzine) and Cato from Deathhammer/Black Magic. Speaking of Deathhammer… yup, you (might have) guessed it, that’s “Blood Token” from the band’s first LP. Their next album, “Evil Power”, is coming out this year on Hells Headbangers by way. Expect greatness.

We’re pulling no stops now. “Sergeant says to fucking kill” and we’re good soldiers. Evil Army, motherfuckers! We’ve probably talked about this before, but the name for our show came from one of their tracks. The more you know… We close shop with Morbid Saint, ‘cause fuck you that’s why! It’s been thrash, thrash, thrash for a while now and we felt like bashing some skulls in anyway. BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL! Take us home, boys!

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Tracklist

1. The Battle of Armageddon| Incubus (USA) | Serpent Temptation, 1988 http://www.discogs.com/artist/205164-Incubus-3
2. Kill with Napalm (Evil Blood cover) | Antichrist (SWE) | Burned Beyond Recognition, 2013 http://militiaofdeath.com/
3. Sunrise (Come My Way) | Buffalo (AUS) | Volcanic Rock, 1973 http://www.discogs.com/artist/1113133-Buffalo-2
4. Ravage in Town | Gotham City (SWE) | The Unknown, 1984 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gotham-City/68129560481
5. Metalström | Manilla Road (USA) | Open the Gates, 1985 http://www.manillaroad.net/
6. Eternal Summer | Celtic Frost (CHE) | To Mega Therion, 1985 http://www.celticfrost.com/
7. Louder Than Hell | NME (USA) | Unholy Death, 1986 http://www.discogs.com/artist/985106-NME-6
8. Storm of Ashes | Sauron (USA) | Satanic Assassins, 2008 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sauron/108509442518197
9. Blood Token| Deathhammer (NOR) | Phatom Knights, 2010 https://www.facebook.com/deathhammerofficial
10. Sgt. Says Kill | Evil Army (USA) | Evil Army, 2006 https://www.facebook.com/EvilArmyofficial
11. Beyond the Gates of Hell | Morbid Saint (USA) | Spectrum of Death, 1990 https://www.facebook.com/morbidsaintofficial