How long has Vincent Crowley been doing this Satanic death metal thing? Seems like forever. Well, allow me to bring to your attention "Hail Victory," which dates back to the early 90's. Crowley was and still remains a dedicated Satanist of LaVeyan variety, and on this album he made it very clear. The CD consists of eight songs, plus nine keyboard interludes courtesy of that Church Of Satan guy Peter Gilmore. During each interlude one of LaVey's nine Satanic statements is recited, which, I suppose, makes "Hail Victory" some sort of a concept album. Unfortunately, while these keyboard tracks are all good and dandy for playing at a family picnic, their musical merits do not fit a metal record. In other words, these are all throwaway tracks, which only prevent a listener from enjoying the actual songs. The eight death metal tracks are all satisfactory in my books. Mr. Crowley gathered a solid back-up band, including drummer Mike Browning of Nocturnus. The music is mostly slow and simplistic, but nevertheless effective old-school death metal. I like the songs a lot. What's irritating is me having to press the "skip" button after each proper song in order to pass over the stupid interludes. Very annoying as you can imagine. They could just as well read all of the darn statements during the opening intro and let the proper songs flow freely. But the one with horns probably demanded nothing less than a separate interlude for each Satanic statement, and you know you can't oppose that (would be like peeing against the wind), so I guess you have to take it or leave it as it is.

© 2002 boris