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Sathanas: Crowned infernal
11/10/10 || Trauma
When I look at my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, the greatest nation in the world up until about 2003 (don’t worry, no one has taken that title yet anyways); the country that has spawned many amazing death metal bands let alone world-renowned musical acts; a nation that thankfully has a greater number of households owning dogs than cats; the home of the Internet; a country I’d defend to my very last ml of blood; a — wait, fuck, Pittsburgh. I don’t readily think of Pittsburgh for much more than the Steelers, Penguins, Steel, “Slippy”, “Yins”, and those three rivers. Well, go ahead and add Sathanas to that list.
During a quite ingenious idea by staffer Habakuk to profile bands of a specific area/city/region, I came across Sathanas. It was by luck, too. I was having a hell of a time finding anything that sounded remotely decent (maybe looking a bit too shallow in the heap of bands) and even settled on two bands that were far from fantastic. This was a true gem, not only because they are still a current band, but they have been around for a while and are still kicking ass.
“Crowned infernal”, to be reviewed in full here by yours truly, is one of their later offerings from 2007. While not sporting as lively a production as 2009’s “Nightrealm apocalypse”, it makes up for that terribly minor shortcoming tenfold with some very fantastic tunes.
When approaching a session with Sathanas, you best keep a certain expectation from joining the copulation about to begin. Namely, for thoughful/introspective lyrical themes. If you’re expecting a whole lot of Satan worship you can go ahead and bring them along for a fantastic ménage à trois. Sathanas isn’t doing anything new with regards to the music, but they’ve definitely perfected it in their own way. You’ll hear a nice mix between black and death metal with a healthy dose of old school a la Celtic Frost, Venom, and Bathory in there somewhere. No one style really takes over and you’re left with something at best I’d just refer to as death metal. I mean, there may be riffs that sound very black or even Immortal-esque, and the vocals may hint at a lean towards one style, but it’s fruitless to choose. It’s evil, aggressive, and heavy. Oh, and catchy as fuck at times.
“Crowned infernal”, the opener, is about what you should expect with regards to an opening riff. The vocals begin quite early and I find this is a fantastic track spearheading an impeccable foursome of tracks in the beginning containing “At death’s command”, “Cast into the fire”, and the best track on this album, “Beneath the blood red moon”. The opening riff is fantastic and the song never gets boring. I’d also hold it in near a high regard as some of the best tunes brought forth by bands such as Dissection, Immortal, and Emperor. The first three tracks put you along this trajectory of awesome tunes and by themselves would put enough force to propel you through another 5 tracks, but they throw “Beneath the blood red moon” in there and pretty much ensures that you are so taken care of early on that if this album falters in the slightest along the way you’re not gonna notice too much.
With this being my longest review in a while now, I think it’s easy to say that I sure don’t notice much in the way of “meh”. All that I notice are some recurring riffs changed slightly in a few of the tunes (but none so blatantly obvious as “Summoning the ancient hordes”… and that’s not until close to the end of the album). Hardly a negative, trust me. You’ve still got songs like “Hammer of demons” right smack in the middle. It doesn’t provide quite the “Holy fuck this is awesome” feeling I got in the beginning, but it’s pretty close and more than enough to make me feel that they’re not going to just let me down even by the end.
The final two tunes, “Necromantic rites” and “Sacrificial kingdom” are extra evil and cap off a supremely great album. To top it all off the very last words you are greeted to are, “You are all going to hell.” And then nothing. It’s fucken great. If I was a bit more familiar with this album a little earlier on this would definitely be high in my published list of the best of the past decade. It’s made it into my current unofficial list, though.
On to the separate components of this album, I find no lows. The guitars and drums sound great, the guitars more-so. I like the vocals a lot. They prove to be one of the elements of this band that makes them stand out more for me. They’re higher pitched than death metal vocals, much more venom in them than any thrash vocals, but not near as annoying as black vocals tend to get. They also incorporate some additional lower-register vocals in some of the verses throughout the album giving it more of a reason to sound so evil. So far this has proven to be a winning formula for these guys so I don’t see any reason to get rid of it. The bass is pretty prevalent in the mix, but not overly audible. Though, even if you’re not listening for it you’ll have no problem hearing it whatsoever. I did note earlier that the production wasn’t quite as lively as their follow-up album. However, I also said that it’s terribly minor — and it is. When listening to the two compared to each other it’s quite obvious.
You’d be doing yourself a disservice to not hear this album if you’re into metal of the less cheesy kind. Pick it up, love it, and profess your servitude to Satan, because if Sathanas has anything to say about it, you’re going to be his bitch one way or another. Depending on my mood this score could sway up 1/2 a point or so, but this is the most objective rating, and oh-so-fitting for them.
- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Pulverized Records
- Website: Sathanas MySpace
- Band
- Paul Tucker: vocals, guitar
- Bill Davidson: bass, vocals
- Jim Strauss: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Crowned infernal
- 02. At death’s command
- 03. Cast into the fire
- 04. Beneath the blood red moon
- 05. Dawn of satan’s rise
- 06. The beast of revelation
- 07. Witches sabbat
- 08. Summoning the ancient hordes
- 09. Necromantic rites
- 10. Hymns from the shadowland
- 11. Sacrificial kingdom
