Satan - Suspended Sentence (1987)

I have a little bit of Mandela Effect when it comes to Suspended Sentence, or at least I thought I did, because I always equated this as more of a thrash album when I was growing up. I remember listening to this one almost as much as Court in the Act, possibly because I thought it just had a better mix in my headphones, but also because it was a little harder hitting and that mixed in better with my fixation Slayer, Death Angel, Metallica, Coroner, Kreator, Possessed, and all the other stuff I was so heavily into at the time I was transitioning from a pimply Middle School geek to a pimply High School geek with longer hair. Now that I've had so many years to get back to it, I realize that it might have been a bit of exaggeration...sure, this is more adjacent to the escalation of aggression that was transpiring, and many bands actually morphed into straight up thrash bands from their trad metal roots, but it's also a pretty smooth successor for how Court in the Act transitioned to Into the Future...this is a very natural extension.

Imagine the band took their debut, ramped up the bottom end, added a few more gang shouts to the chorus parts, and transformed some of their complex guitar lines into some more chugging force. That is the sophomore in a nutshell: a modified, leaden heavy metal bruiser which was prescient for a lot of the harder hitting European power metal to follow the next decade. The bass playing here is incredible, Graeme English cranked up a little with a thicker, fluidic tone that is just as prominent as the two axe lords he is locking horns with. There are still oodles of melodic noodles flowing above the pummeling pavement, to give this record plenty of atmosphere on tunes like the epic "Who Dies Wins", which for me is the equal of anything off the debut. In fact, there is about an EP worth of material here, that combined with the Into the Future, might have surpassed the debut in my estimation. The "92th Symphony" intro is a nice setup with its glistening harmonies, "11th Commandment" is unforgettable with those pluggy opening bass lines and some totally killer, thick mid-paced riffs. "Avalanche of a Million Hearts", a beautiful acoustic power ballad that erupts into Sean Taylor's thundering beats and some more riffs that have remained in my memory since first hearing them.

Otherwise, there are a few numbers which are give or take, like "Vandal" and "S.C.U.M.", the titles of both enforcing that semi-thrash vibe I get for the record. These have their moments, but before I spun this again I would have had a harder time remembering them, or "Suicidal Justice". Nothing that would necessarily make you press 'stop', but they are not the equals of their peers for me. And that's the one reason that Suspended Sentence doesn't quite match Court in the Act or the amazing reunion period material. The production is a bit uneven here, too, half of the stuff sounds more polished and punchy than the rest...for example, "Calculated Execution" is a decent closer but lacks the power of the first three on the disc. Having said that, this is a robust, edgier Satan for the later 80s, some of the more creative magnificence of the debut traded in for something that might keep them afloat during times where more and more heshers were abandoning the trad stuff for the thrashing. It works well enough in that capacity, and there are a number of gems here that the years cannot sully, but it didn't seem to matter as the band would soon enter a 22 year slumber interrupted only by their time as Pariah.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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