Dead of Night

Should we ham it up with Satan, considering Santa's on the mend, recovering from his recent merry making Crusade?

Shift the clutch into gear, then, and motor on to Night Screamer's fondly anticipated and now, rather hyped, full-length debut, Dead of Night (released digitally and on CD under California's Stormspell Records), which encompasses nine gamy grit-smeared chunks of classic heavy metal perfidy...ample enough for the twin pickaxe men, not to mention seven year running - make that necrotically drag racing - quintet as a whole to redeem itself, as much for taxing stall regarding this here debut proper as its lowbrow, yet sadly unremarkable Hit n' Run EP. On this starless night, however, praise Belzebub! Night Screamer suffers, nary a witch to live, but good n' enthused thumb screw pressing on behalf of...NIGHTTHROWER!

Any lucid and wooly Gen Xer recalls those corny "Be Kind; Rewind." VHS stickers from daze of (m)old. Nowadays, the slogan has evolved into "Be Nice; Sacrifice!" thanks to such-titled knicker twister of a six plus minute long order which precedes an equally sharpish and raw, anthemic, fist pumping namesake; mind, a surely hard-driving and chthonic namesake alongside eponymously seizing co-wraith in the golden state's Night Demon, or even better, Sweden's Screamer (of the melodic, not diurnal, incarnation).

Next to the Hit & Run EP, "Gritón Nocturno"'s overall sound is as thick, girthy and toothsome as a porterhouse steak, with sufficient, as opposed to over-abundant and cloying, harmony whilst song structures are more elaborate than expected from either 2014's defiled tidbit or Dead of Night's inherently awesome cover art, from which I fail to desist. In any event, "Sacrifice" sets D.O.N.'s svelte, meaty tone with a fleshly drawn, minute long, bumptiously grooving opening bass line beneath slick n' shred some chrome bone(d) guitar chops while front gloamer Gadd McFly waxes coiled and loose, viper-like, thanks to his level and gruff mid-range - though, at times, nails perfunctory low notes with conviction. Jerkily evil like the ancient Cities of the Plain, "Sacrifice's" brief, but suitably riveting and unholy, (Evil Dead) bridge quickly yields a coarse exhaust of trade-off leads which salts the bejesus out of us. Its live version, on the other hand (of doom), slays.

Although Dead of Night's three-quarter hour of conjured apocalypse channeled through rock solid, mid-to-fast tempo(ed) riffery compounded, at the drop of a zombie-munched vallhund hat (with brains), by pedal-to-the-medal, ever-wizened and sprite dual soloing, makes for a cathartically stirring experience, an early pair of otherwise celebrated cuts gets under my skin like a burrowing parasite. "Hit And Run", reprised to an admittedly better production, still sounds sophomoric and humdrum; the cheeseball Ratt-meets-Whitesnake chorus compels me to bail from the ride straight into harm's way; namely, the lock jawed maws of unsavory decayed wayfarers which troll, unchecked and un-abided, across the blighted land - lookit said wickedly rendered "dead zone"! Its abject pentatonic honky tonk-ness via excessively bluesy guitar licks, whilst competently played, feels dialed in while a supposedly occultic and perhaps Manson-esque "Blood on the Wall (Fucked It Up)" also gets my (roadkill-ed) goat, however mildly or vilely.

Aside from said clueless pair, by all (or any) means, sacrifice yourself to last year's Dead of Night. You'll find it that much more energetic, stimulating and skilled than anything prior. Fellow late blooming acolytes who've also risen, however quietly or impetuously, amongst zoetic ranks include British colleagues Amulet, along with Leather Heart and War Dogs, for want of kick-ass Spanish contemporaries...as every"body" digs killer Iberian trad metal!

Of terminal import, am startled to glean a couple of unreleased, live (online) humdingers sung by the band's versatile female bassist. A blazing surfeit of pumped, radical bass notwithstanding, she's a "natural" - in the smokily inflecting vein of Lucier's Joanna Sardonis or Castle's Elizabeth Blackwell. Oh, as parting shot, doesn't this here eerie but oh-so "fire and brimstone-y" refrain to "Night Screamer" proper evoke subtle frissons of lilliputian (Bible) controversy piece, Lilith - she, the (equally) night flying "deceiver" of but only seventeen appellations?:

"A paralyzing chill down my spine
I'm all alone

They call her the Night
Screamer
Get ready to fight
'till you die
Here comes the Night
Screamer
You're end is in sight
She's out for your blood
Out for blood tonight!"