Long-running NWOBHM act, Satan, has gone on hiatus, broken up, and reformed, more times than I care to count, however, they first started out in 1979.  Since their last reformation in 2011, the band has been on fire.  Releasing four amazing albums during this time span and Songs in Crimson is now their fifth release during this stretch.

This is their eighth album overall.  Their first two albums, Court in the Act and Suspended Sentence as well as their Into the Future EP – all released in the 80’s are still untouchable.  What is befitting of this album and band name is that it was released on Friday the 13^th.   10 songs in 44 minutes the band has streamlined the process a bit with no songs reaching the five-minute mark.

“Frantic Zero” starts things off with a blustery guitar solo and epic metal build-up going right into an excellent metal riff then right into the NWOBHM/Speed Metal style.  The galloping is intensely awesome and Brian Ross’ vocals after all these decades show no sign of letting up and his tone is still original all these decades later.  Excellent guitar solos continue to erupt all around us and the guitar duo of Steve Ramsey and Russ Tippins is still sorely overlooked in metal today.  They are excellent.  More guitar soloing and galloping going on.  The production though is a tad on the thin side.  This detracts during the galloping moments.

This is highly evident on the next song “Era (The Day Will Come)”.  The galloping pace is great, the music is well-played – that is not the issue.  These parts do call for a bit of a stronger production.  The sound sounds a little too garage-style.  The production here is a step down from their last four releases, for sure.  The backing vocals and guitar harmonies truly take center stage in this song.  Many catchy passages and the guitar tone has an organic dirty sound to it.  There are some synths towards the end of the song as well, this adds ambiance to the metal.  Very cool idea.

“Martyrdom” starts with some excellent guitar soloing and the song continues this way in a mid-pace rhythm with some very good drumming courtesy of Sean Taylor.  Those catchy guitar harmonies return and are excellent and a great choice for the band to return to these moments.  The chorus is catchy and melodic.  Graeme English gets to shine with his bass guitar with an isolated bass guitar moment in the middle of the song before the song brings forth more guitar solos.  The mid-paced speed is excellent for this song and those darn harmonies return again towards the end of the song and I find myself playing air guitar every damn time when this part comes on.  I love it.

“Turn the Tide” brings back the speed with the fast NWOBHM speed and excellent isolated guitar riffs occur right before the speed metal part takes the listener for a ride.  The guitar work is impeccable and this song has a lot of headbanging moments.  There are some excellent guitar solos piped in louder with the mix during the faster moments and the vocals come in at the right time, as the song slows down toward the end.  The song title was sung several times and Brian getting into some extremely high registers.  I’m like how can he still do that??  Impressive.

Songs in Crimson is a very good album by Satan.  I find this album a bit less catchier than their past releases and the production, being thin, takes away from the power, that could be achieved if this was punchier.  I do enjoy the overall organic nature of the recording and the band continues to get better musically speaking.  I just feel the band could have done a bit better on this album.

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