Satanic Royalty

I vividly remember the buzz this album caused in the German and international metal underground in 2011. Even though the black thrash/speed genre had seen the release of various timeless classics during the 2000s (Tara, Satan`s Boundaries Unchained, The Rise of Satanic Might, etc.), apart from a small circle of connoisseurs nobody seemed to care about these releases. However, things were fundamentally different in the case of Satanic Royalty. Upon the release of their long-awaited debut album, Midnight were hailed in metal magazines and across the internet as the smallest common denominator of the metal underground and the album received enthusiastic reviews. However, what were the factors that contributed to the success of this debut?

In terms of sound, Midnight drew heavy inspiration from the likes of Venom and Motorhead on their debut album, while still exhibiting several idiosyncratic elements that saved them from sounding like a complete copycat of these bands. At the same time, Midnight excelled on Satanic Royalty where many retro acts fail. Not only did they emulate the sound and the oeuvre of the black metal pioneers from Newcastle, but they managed to exceed their predecessors in terms of songwriting, tightness, and accessibility. Once you have heard effective and catchy cuts like "Rip this hell" or "You can´t stop steel", they will keep stuck in your head for weeks. This simplistic catchiness that hallmarks Midnight´s work to this day, makes them appeal to a bigger audience than their equally skilled but more technical peers. That being said, it must be stressed that the album sounds quite raw and that the raspy voice of Athenar and the blasphemous lyrics will deter it from ever gaining any mainstream success.

Additionally, Midnight had something about them that set them apart from their peers. Athenar seems to have understood that many successful metal bands leverage other aspects of their artistic expression to enhance the qualities of their music and to draw bigger attention. Similar to bands like Ghost, Portal, Kiss, or Slipknot, Midnight are a very thematic band that use their stage outfits (Mentor-like black hoods) and their overly blasphemous covers to create a unique identity that complements their rotten but ultimately life-affirming sound. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that Midnight made bigger waves in the metal scene with their debut than sonically similar bands like Blizzard and Gehenna.

Looking back at Satanic Royalty more than 10 years after its release, I can only say that it has stood the test of time and remains one of my favorite albums of the 2010s. Neither the brooding title track nor any of the following eruptions of speed metal and punk have lost any of their appeal and still serve as the perfect soundtrack for casual binge drinking or a friendly knife fight in a bar.

While I can enjoy a good, innovative, boundary pushing album as much as the next guy, I can also enjoy an album that's a shameless throwback, and that's where Midnight thrives. It's a cornucopia of sex, blood, and rock n' roll that owes more than a little bit to Venom, Motorhead, and Tom G Warrior, but even for an album so heavily entrenched in the '80s, "Satanic Royalty" still manages to sound fresh and exciting today.

There's a good blend of speed metal and slower, more traditional metal on here, but my preference has to be for the faster songs. That's where Midnight auteur Athenar really shines, where he can just let rip and inject a heavy dosage of punk influence into the music. Just try not to chant along with the chorus of "You Can't Stop Steel," an apparent ode to the Pittsburgh Steelers that's heavily laden with wild lead guitars and some surprisingly melodic riffs. I also have to give special mention to "Lust, Filth, and Sleaze," which besides being a killer song, has some of the most outright explicit lyrics I've heard in a metal song. See, normally metal songs about sex are just flat out violent or bizarre, but this is just...hey, sometimes you want to sing about breast milk in a metal song, and if the music is good enough to back it up, who's gonna stop you? When the loose, sloppy guitar solo suddenly breaks into a dark, eerie harmony, it's a nice change of pace, and really cements the song's greatness.

I'll admit that the few slower songs on here, such as the "Savage Dominance" and "Necromania" aren't always the most well developed or interesting, but they've got some fun moments, and other midpaced tracks like "Black Damnation" are great. The production style is right on the money for this sort of album, a hint of rawness while also giving every instrument a chance to shine. Like many of the bands that Midnight draws from, the bass is massive and distorted, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Is Athenar a good singer? Not by any technical definition of the word "good" (or "singer," for that matter), but he sounds like a true madman, a great fit for the kind of music he makes.

So if you're a total die hard for the the days of the '80s, when metal was sloppy and drunken, and you don't mind a shameless throwback sound, "Satanic Royalty" should be right up your alley.

Sometimes, an album just deserves to be shouted about from the rooftops in your sickest voice. Satanic Royalty qualifies as one such album and here’s how I know. A few nights ago, I was brushing my teeth at nearly 1am and screaming the lyrics to ‘Lust Filth and Sleaze’ (not even a comma, that’s attitude) at the mirror, never mind that all my neighbours were asleep and it was freezing cold. And that was one beer into a nihilistic one-beer drinking spree. If you need me to spell out why that’s awesome, you had probably better not read the rest of the review, because you’re not going to like Midnight.

I’ll be the first to admit that Athenar (the one man of Midnight) doesn’t quite fuck me up like I wish he would, though there’s enough to get excited about to make sure that I’m about 83% fucked up, which is enough for most nights at 1am, especially if the next day is a work day. If you weren’t sure about how to become satanic royalty, you should follow these instructions: get a big, dirty cauldron and start filling it with as much Motorhead and Venom as possible, cramming it down with a rod of blackened metal composed of Abigail and Toxic Holocaust until it oozes over the rim and makes your living room smell all satanic too. There’s not really much more to the magic than that, except adding sex and blasphemy to taste, while it’s worth remembering that the faster you consume it the more you’re going to feel the effects.

If you don’t know me that well, that last comment is supposed to show that I really go fucking batshit crazy about the speed metal numbers among the 30 minutes on show, though I’m not quite so sure about the numbers that try to be nasty through slow pace or show more of a classic edge. No offense to Lemmy, but Motorhead were always better when they cut the brake cable and just riffed off into a smoking pile of rubble, as happens very dramatically on ‘Violence on Violence’, ‘You Can’t Stop Steel’, and the raging hard-on of ‘Lust Filth and Sleaze’. Those songs juxtapose the caustic chaos of Athenar’s punk/black vocals with sudden recurring dashes of speed, mostly unleashed after the hook of a chorus, so that the rush hits you just as you’ve emptied your lungs and leaves you gasping from the incision, because those riffs are fucking sharp. There’s plenty of screaming from the lead guitars too, which do a fine job of whipping the pace up even more.

For the steadier cuts, there is slightly more of a crushing quality to the guitars, backed up by the gut-punch of the bass, which also makes the quick sections feel suitably heavy. ‘Black Damnation’ is the only song that deliberately trades a quotient of its heavy metal for atmosphere, creeping around to give you the chills instead of spitting in your mouth. Along with ‘Rip This Hell’, this has the most classic bent to it, adding in chord-based fills that wouldn’t feel out of place on an early ‘80s album of loose underground metal. It’s slightly a shame that the rest of the material can’t make itself more hard-hitting, especially since the lyrics are pretty grim in places, though I suppose that we’re not supposed to take Satanic Royalty seriously enough to induce total destruction. On the other hand, ‘Holocaustic Deafening’ shoves bass volume to its maximum for a punkier thrasher, while the title track is the kind of filthy classic metal hymn that could well have been buried for 35 years.

As dirty, punky, blackened metal goes, there’s a lot of it that just reeks of style over substance, but Midnight proves that Athenar also has the chops to pull this off with maximum effect, though (let’s be honest) if Venom were given a pass, most people would be. Naturally, I would put a few more truly fast songs on the wish list if I knew Satan was listening, though I must say that a good job is done with rollicking mid-pace to ensure that nothing is actually boring, even if some of the songs don’t make me want to headbutt the fridge. Then again, with an album that’s over so quickly, there’s really no room for downtime. Certainly not at 1am.

I was surprised when I saw this album was released in 2011 because it has a sound straight out of the '80s. This album is so heavily Venom-influenced that one might mistake it for an unreleased album of the first-wave black metal (FWBM) band. But I'm not saying that Midnight's lone member on this album, Athenar, simply copy and pasted Venom's sound, because he didn't. He just captured the 8'0s Thrash and FWBM scene very well while still maintaining a sound all his own.

The opening track completely sucked me in, leaving me begging for more. This song Satanic Royalty was very melodic and I loved every second of it. It was by far my favorite track on this album, and makes the rest disappointing in comparison. Note how I said "in comparison" as the rest of the album kicks ass also, but perhaps not as spectacularly.

There is much emphasis on the guitars throughout the album, which I find a very desirable element. There are some killer, face-melting solos on a few of the songs, which I found immensely satisfying. The drums and bass seem secondary, but play their part and play it well. The vocals are gloriously rough in that 80's thrashy way. Not raspy, but angry and scratchy. His voice actually sounds pretty similar to Lemmy Kilmister.

The lyrical content is a mix of "Hail Satan!" and "Drink Beer, Party Hard!". The former being typical of FWBM and the latter typical of thrash metal. The lyrics of "Lust, Filth and Sleaze" had my sides in pain, with lyrics like: "You give me lust, you give me sleaze, I'm gonna bust when you're down on your knees". That's some Romeo and Juliet shit, man.

But seriously, this album kicks major ass and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

After nine long years, Cleveland based sleaze machine Midnight finally rise from the mire and unleash their debut album of unkempt and filth laden speed metal upon the rabble, and what an album it is. In short, what is essentially the grime enveloped bastard child of eighties Satan loving shock merchants Venom. The Venom influence is so obscene that “Satanic Royalty” could almost be mistaken for a lost recording from the UK legends, and I’d be fairly certain that they’d also be the first to admit that this is nothing but shameless adoration at the altar of Cronos and co. But when it’s as good as this, why the fuck should anyone care?

The album’s title track explodes out of the blocks with the energy of a caffeine soaked cokehead, riffing straight from NWOBHM legends Tank and Athenar’s obnoxious snarling. Hell, Athenar could well be Cronos himself minus the receding hairline. The central hook to the song is absolutely enormous, dragging you into Midnight’s vortex of bitches, booze and blasphemy before spitting you out a disorientated mess. First impressions were “They can’t keep up such a high level of quality and ferocity throughout can they?” Amazingly they do, every single track on “Satanic Royalty” is nothing but high octane speed metal strewn with blistering heavy metal soloing and neck breaking riffing tied together with maniacal vocals.

The lyrics are another thing altogether, they’ve got everything from the divine “Marching out from the catacombs of hell, Kingdom’s falling, Bred to destroy the children of Christ” to the peaceful “Skullz will crack brains explode” and they even manage to make room for a love song in the ever so subtle “Lust Filth and Sleaze”; “You give me lust you give me sleaze, I'm gonna bust when you're down on your knees”. And who says romance is dead eh? If you’re looking for the ultimate leather studded and alcohol soaked soundtrack for 2011, then you can’t look much further than this.

It never deviates from what would be expected of a Venom worship band but remains surprisingly diverse and so engaging that even after repeated listens it never gets old. This is the hurdle where most others attempting the same fall, and Midnight overcomes this with spectacular ease. “Satanic Royalty” is nothing but pure unadulterated mayhem manifested from a gutter somewhere in Ohio with no aim other than to defile and disgust. Bursting with the raw energy of the genre progenitor’s Discharge and Venom’s NWOBHM-esque demonic racket with the vulgarity of Blackie Lawless, Midnight offer thirty minutes of altogether unholy and thoroughly indecent speed metal which is certain to get the adrenaline flowing and horns throwing. Venom even released a new album this year as well, but why bother when Midnight are currently doing Venom better than Venom themselves?

Ohio's Midnight is certainly a treat for us US fans, who have likely long been starved for a proper hybrid of traditional speed and heavy metal with a grimy black metal overtone to call our own. Of course I'm jealous of the Japanese heavyweights Abigail, Metalucifer and Barbatos (at least one of which these guys are friends with and have appeared on splits with), but the time is right, and it only took the underground legend Athemar (aka Jamie Boulder) of the painfully unappreciated Destructor to make it happen. After about eight years of touring, a handful of EPs and split appearances, the cult has arrived where it belongs (Hell's Headbanger Records) and delivered its first full-length, Satanic Royalty. And, would you know, it rocks.

The most obvious comparisons in style would be to those Japanese acts I listed above, or to trace back much further to the explosive NWOBHM sounds of Motörhead, Venom, Tank and other barroom brawlers. Certainly the riffs follow those basic, dirty tenets that hard rock and 'eavy metal have been glued to for going on four decades now. Simple patterns attempt to hook the listener, and the leads and vocals to finish him or her off. Speaking of which, 'Athenar' definitely has a style redolent of Deceased's King Fowley, a steady and constipated bark which fits well over the pummeling choices in chords fit for bloody knuckled street fighting. Where Midnight tends to differ from some of its peers abroad, however, is in the production values, which are quite solid here and loud as opposed to raunchy filth. No, those aesthetics are manifest straight through the lyrics, voice, and rhythmic bluster alone.

Within the first three tracks of the album, Satanic Royalty has already shown us a good deal of variation which the band holds up through the remainder of the tracks. You've got the title track with its broad swath of rock/punk chords and epic melodic breaks, or the slicing speed metal of "You Can't Stop Steel", one of my favorites on the record; or then the more traditional power blues metal of "Rip This Hell". Deeper into the roster, they go even wider with the doom-like, occult overtures of "Black Damnation" and the bass-fueled punkish burst of "Holocaustic Deafening". Personally, I found that the more directly speed metal pieces like "Lust Filth and Sleaze" or "Violence on Violence" were the defining moments for me, but that's not to say that where they deviate there is any sizable dip in quality.

Satanic Royalty flows rather well from fore to aft, with the only possible obstacles being the predictability with which a lot of the guitar patterns are structured, seeing that they've drawn on decades of tradition and chosen not to deviate from the norm. But it's not like you'd be checking out a band like this for its originality, merely it's excess and lethal spin on a classic sound. To that extent, Midnight have a success on their hands, an album that will prove both fun for breaking bottles over each others' domes or picking up the ladies (or gentlemen) of the night. Well, in an ideal world perhaps...but something like Satanic Royalty certainly gives me hope that those days of 80s 'edge' might well be ahead of us as well as behind. Exciter meets Deceased: does that sound appealing? If not, I hate you.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com