Midnight - "Sweet Death and Ecstasy" (Hells Headbangers Records, 2017)

Band: Midnight
Title: Sweet Death and Ecstasy
Genre: Heavy/Black/Speed Metal with Punkish vibes
Year: 20th October 2017
Time: 32 min
Rating: 83/100












Midnight are BACK! After the "Shox of Violence" compilation (reviewed by me some months ago) and the curious charity release "I Don't Need Society" destined to help the victims of the Hurricane Harvey by donating all the profits of this EP to the Red Cross, the Cleveland one-man sleazy squad Midnight recently released the long-held third album "Sweet Death and Ecstasy" obviously through Hells Headbangers Rec. No other bullshits and let's go already to discover this new full-lenght!


There is need to say that "Sweet Death and Ecstasy" is probably the most complete and various album to date of Midnight, and the nice thing is that all this variety is mixed not only with an amazing level of intensity but also with songs more structured than before, as already exemplified by the opening track "Crushed by Demons" (that lasts even 6 minutes and 30 seconds, and this kind of lenght is very strange for Midnight!). In addition, "Sweet Death and Ecstasy" show a slower approach if compared with the two previous albums while it seem to me that the lead guitar has now a very fundamental role because it is almost omnipresent into the discourse by playing not only frequent guitar solos but also many layered riffs so to support the main ones. But don't worry because the sound of Midnight is basically the same in order to play a raw and vulgar mix between '80s black metal, speed metal, pure heavy metal, rock'n'roll and punk but, this time, with a more complete and mature approach like never before.

Specifically, "Sweet Death and Ecstasy" consist of 8 songs and each of them is different. In this sense, expect pure heavy metal songs with a good melodic taste called "Crushed by Demons", the anthemic "Here Comes Sweet Death", the punkish "Bitch Mongrel" and the other 6-minute number "Before My Time in Hell", that's really strange for the Midnight's standards because of its great epic tunes with some "ballad" short moments like in the intro. Then, there are moderately fast songs à la "Teacher's Pet" of Venom as "Melting Brain" and the rockish "Rabid!". And finally the real speed metal songs are only "Penetratal Ecstasy" and "Poison Trash", that contains also a morbid mid-tempo section à la Hellhammer. Hence, all this forms an album characterized by a notable variety, so the listeners will always find ideas of intereset throughout the 32 minutes of this "Sweet Death and Ecstasy".

In conclusion, I think that "Sweet Death and Ecstasy" is the BEST album released by Midnight so far, and this also thanks to Joel Grind of Toxic Holocaust's fame that mixed and mastered it and to the producer Dave Johnson (Soulless). Maybe the only song that could be even better is the closing one "Before My Time in Hell" because I believe that its "ballad" moments could be really developed towards in a very melodic and slow section before to terminate the song the with the usual but effective plethora of guitar solos but that's it. So, this is the new album of Midnight and I am fuckin' sure that it will make you bang AGAIN and AGAIN until you FUCKIN' drop!

Ha! Don't forget, in the double-CD version of the album, you will find also an entire rehearsal recorded live in 2015! Is it enough for you?

Tracklist:

1 - Crushed by Demons
2 - Penetratal Ecstasy
3 - Here Comes Sweet Death
4 - Melting Brain
5 - Rabid!
6 - Bitch Mongrel
7 - Poison Trash
8 - Before My Time in Hell

Line-up:

Athenar - vocals/guitars/bass/drums

BandCamp: https://midnight-ohio.bandcamp.com/
FB Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/Midnight-87909491643/
Hells Headbangers Records: http://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/