Death SS - Heavy Demons (1991)

There is some alternative universe in which Death SS would have found more international success. They fully embraced the shock rock thing from the beginning, with some cool cover images that caught the eyes even when I was younger, always giving me the impression they were some Italian parallel to KISS and King Diamond. But they never really seemed to latch on a particular style, evolving through the years to cover heavy metal, doom, thrash, and even some industrial metal stuff. Now, granted, the living god Alice Cooper explored a lot more territory over his lengthy career, but he had the benefit of massive radio hits early on in his time, where these guys were and are still a virtual unknown. That said, considering how huge the horror fandom is round the world, I think these guys can continue to expand an audience, even one day when it's posthumous, because Steve Sylvester and crew have a cult appeal that has survived since the 70s.

Heavy Demons might have been the record to break them, it's got some of the biggest production and accessible songwriting of their career. Big, fat, simple heavy metal riffs, sometimes with an almost thrash metal intensity. Leads that rip out exactly where they need to, although sometimes they have a lot more flash than feeling. Plenty of keys and sound effects, the creepy atmospheric parts like the intro, acoustic segments that thankfully never herald cheesy power ballads. Some of the tunes like "Peace of Mind", or "Baphomet" give me the impression of earlier Euro power metal with the drums and riffs, certainly you could place these songs alongside Gamma Ray of the time period. Part of "Inquisitor" even sounds like it could have appeared on Painkiller, and "All Souls' Day" has a rhythmic resemblance to King Diamond stuff. They even go back to their roots and mete out the atmospheric doom ("Way to Power"), one of my favorites here, which is almost the antithesis of some of its neighboring tracks, and ironically the closest they actually DO come to a cheesy power ballad in the chorus.

The instruments and production are quite good for its day, but I think the primary deterrent for many is going to be the vocal performance. Steve is a living legend, but he's got a very pinched, nasal edge to his voice which sounds almost like a mistake on some lines. Once you've gotten used to it, then it has a sleaziness about it which might have fit more on a lower tier glam rock cult classic, but I much prefer when he focuses in on some of the more powerful melodic lines where, or some of the shrieking, which does remind me slightly of King Diamond or Lizzy Borden (who were a similar shock rock/metal act), or some of the lower, harsher parts. He clearly has the pipes to do this, but I don't know if it's his accent or a stylistic choice which can tend to make some of the lines sound a little too cheesy in delivery, and I can understand why a lot of folks might have been turned off while listening to this. Otherwise, the stylistic content of the album also feels a little scattershot, not to 'dealbreaker' levels, it's clearly the same group of musicians but it lacks focus and good pacing in the track order.

Ultimately, I do like this album, in fact it's one of those I'm likely to spin first when I'm in the mood for Death SS, but it's clearly flawed, in some cases lovingly so, and probably best enjoyed by shock rock or theatric horror metal fans who want something that sounds slightly familiar but also a little quirky.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.deathss.com/deathssweb2/

Death SS - Black Mass (1989)

Black Mass is probably one of those albums you remember just as much for its cover as for the actual musical content. I mean, seriously, that's pretty fucking haunting. Has Jesus ever looked any cooler than this? The eyes, man. The eyes. At any rate, the record is also notable for attempting to incorporate a pretty broad range of elements into a pure heavy metal package. Though Steve Sylvester's primary vehicle Death SS never quite brought him the success of a King Diamond or Lizzy Borden, which had a similar theatrical, horror-rooted flair to their image, he still spun some heads in Europe and has enjoyed over 30 years of cult status among fans in Italy and beyond.

It's not a stretch to discern that Death SS is heavily based in the shock rock aesthetics that were pioneered by KISS and Alice Cooper, even down to Sylvester's sniveling, constipated vocals which recollect Coopers' heavier rock works in the 70s and 80s. At times, I honestly found Steve (aka Stefano Silvestri) to be a bit distracting, since his accent and delivery combine for an atmosphere that feels more like the family cat hunting down crumbs of kibble more than some strapping metal maniac, but even his voices mixes and matches with the tunes, often blending in with the backing vocals or attempting a cleaner, sultry mid-range. There are a few points at which he's even pitch-shifted down to provide a sort of horror narrative in tracks like "Welcome to My Hell", but this feels just about as corny as his scrunched nasal bite in "Kings of Evil" or "Cursed Mama".

As for the music, it's quite solid traditional/speed metal which at times reminds one of Germans like Accept, Rage or even a less blindingly melodic late 80s Helloween. Black Mass is pretty well produced for its time, with clean tones in both the rhythm and lead guitars, the latter of which feel a bit too soaring or bluesy to really capitalize on the dark themes in the lyrics or cover art, but then, this was in an era where cheap horror flicks like "Black Roses" or "Trick or Treat" where just the act of having a heavy metal band in the score was considered 'edgy' or dark. Not that Black Mass is a soundtrack to anything other than what's in the band's minds, but I'd compare them to a band like Detroit's Halloween whose lyrics alone were supposed to channel the creepiness more than the rather major keyed, straightforward musical output. Death SS were a lot more unique though, using acoustic/ballad segments, organs, proggy synthesizers and even saxophones to flesh out their fairly stock array of rhythm guitars.

This is not the best material in the Death SS repertoire, as the following album Heavy Demons upped the ante on the metallic elements, and the preceding Evil Metal EP had better songs than any of these, but it's definitely reaching for a wider appeal than most of their pre-industrial metal era. The lyrics, while not complex, are more thoughtful than one might expect for a horror based record, but I do rather wish there were a more central, consistent concept running through the entirely of its runtime. The music is just good enough to stand on the threshold of the memory, and certainly there were scores of better bands in the genre pouring out of Europe in the late 80s that made this sound like child's play, but if you're into the shock theatrics and not so easily dismissive of Sylvester's pinched vocals, it might be worth a spin.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (pray the Devil with force and faith)

http://www.deathss.com/