On which an Electric Wizzard man has a 1960s style wig-out
It’s one of the biggest cliches in rock n roll. The idea that too cool for school hipsters like to put around that they make music for themselves and no one else. As Ozzy once said: “don’t want to be famous? Don’t come out of the garage then.”
Or slightly more obliquely you could put it like this: “All I can say is that I’ve watched Tony Iommi rip into the opening chords of ‘War Pigs’ from 30 feet away. I’ve had Bobby Liebling look me straight in the eyes as he sang ‘All Your Sins’. I’ve had my hair stand on end and felt strange frissons from the music which means so much to me. My ultimate desire is to reach people in the same way with our music. That’s what I strive for.”
That paragraph came from Clayton Burgess, singer in Satan’s Satyrs, for whom this is a third record. Also in Electric Wizzard, the fan in Burgess clearly uses SS to just, well, freak out. There’s nine songs here and all of them are slightly odd pieces of brilliance. Where EW are oppressive and confined, Satan’s Satryrs are running round to explore.
For goodness sake, where else would you find a song called “Geranium Bomb” with no hint of irony. That song (sample line: “we didn’t ask to be born”) is pretty typical, it’s a fuzzed up, riff-tastic beast of a thing that would take any man outside for a fight who suggested it stripped back a little bit, it also has decided – again in common with a great deal of “……Us” that a song is just an excuse for an OTT guitar solo.
At its best, and to be fair this is much of the record, Satan’s Satyrs deliver some cross between Sabbath and Blue Cheer and fills it with lyrics that no sane (or sober) person would understand. And unless your life is sad and empty, no one should actually care what “Creepy Teens” is about, just be glad it exists.
Seemingly a jam in which some lyrics break out at sporadic intervals – or in the case of the screeching “Spooky Nuisance” they don’t actually bother with lyrics at all – “Don’t Deliver Us” is a thing of rare beauty and skill “(Won’t You Be My) Gravedancer” might seem like a Rob Zombie song but it’s instead a throbbing and pummelling slice of something that’s not quite heavy metal and it’s not quite rock n roll. Just listen to the closing guitar from Jarred Nettin and you won’t care for quantifying why it’s magnificent, but good god you’ll know it is.
The best of a very, very good bunch indeed is “Two Hands” which brings to mind Turbowolf at their heaviest, but really there’s nothing not to love here. Burgess wants his music to reach people and make the hair stand up on the back of their neck? Job done.
Hail Satan’s
Rating 9/10
