Despite the near absence from popular media, the realm of Metal is a vast sonic landscape, stretching across many countries, and many sounds and styles. Under the umbrella of the title are found everything from the most guttural of Nordic Satanic growlers, to the massive of hair L.A. Glamsters. With such a huge range to explore, it was no surprise that I’d never heard of Greece’s Saturday Night Satan, but a quick glimpse at their Facebook page where they described themselves as “Occult Metal” and had shows opening for two of my favourite acts, Lucifer and Green Lung, definitely piqued my interest in their album ‘All Things Black’.

From the first beats of opener ‘5AM’ it is clear that Saturday Night Satan definitely don’t lean towards the extreme portion of the Metal spectrum, with a toe tapping 80’s hard “Rawk” beat and riff leading up to the cleanly sung vocals, the track whipping past in a single friendly three and a half minutes. This accessible sound continues with ‘Rule With Fire’, opening with a Thin Lizzy-lite twin guitar part leading up a slightly sinister riff, and I do mean just slightly sinister. It has the feel of the sort of track that might occasionally sneak into Eurovision in the hope of repeating Lordi’s unexpected win of 2006. ‘Devil In Disguise’ is lighter still, with a poppy vibe at odds with lyrics apparently borrowed from Papa Emeritus’s scrap book. That Scooby-Doo level of scariness comes to a peak in title track ‘All Things Black’ and frankly in my aged brain I just imagined the song playing over one of the old chase montages from the classic cartoon as a janitor in a monster suit chased Shaggy, Thelma and the gang around an abandoned fairground.

Each of the tracks on the album came out of the speakers in an unchallenging flow: ‘Lurking In The Shadows’ had some stronger keyboard vamps in the mix; ‘By The River’ was the ballad inviting the audience to raise their lighters in the air (or wave the torch lights built into your phones for the younger generation); and closer ‘Of Love And The Void’ added acoustic guitars and a flute to introduce a tinge of folk mystery to their occult sound.

Whilst competently played, cleanly produced, and dotted through with some nod along hooks, there is just nothing much I found to really sink my teeth into in ‘All Things Black’. It’s all very safe, familiar, and whilst riddled through with occult references, the general delivery makes the lightest of Ghost tracks sound positively Watainian, if such an adjective exists. That said, if your idea of hard and heavy is the likes of Def Leppard or Bon Jovi, this may well be right up your alley, and possibly even a gateway to exploring some of the darker reaches of the realm of Metal.

(6/10 Spenny)

https://www.facebook.com/saturdaynightsatan

https://saturdaynightsatan.bandcamp.com/album/all-things-black