Reaping the Demo(n)s

I’m not normally one to peer backwards 20 years to find things to write about, but there’s little doubt that this band deserves at least a cursory revisit. Sacrilege, from the illustrious metal city of Birmingham, England, flew under the radar but released some high quality material during the 1980s. Starting life heavily embroiled in the punk scene- founding member Damian Thompson was previously in The Varukers- they progressed rapidly towards thrash metal and ended up, strangely enough as a progressive doom band. During this latter period, they released the rather excellent and esoteric Turn Back Trilobite, but today we are going to concentrate on their more visceral beginnings.

Which brings us to this CD, or double CD, I should say. It’s a collection of their four demo recordings plus some live tracks, clocking in at a pretty daunting two and a half hours. This makes it slightly difficult to really get to grips with in a review. Suffice to say that whilst a consistently thrashtastic pace is generally maintained there is also the occasional speed metal gem foreshadowing the more experimental direction the band would later take. The key element of the sound is Lynda Simpson’s vocals. Whilst later in the band’s career she assumes quite a sweet singing voice, here the words are spat viciously. Whilst it’s pretty easy to point to comparisons like Holy Moses’s Sabina Classen (for sure, there is an element of that, but Lynda’s voice is cleaner most of the time) there’s as much punk in there, and at times I’m reminded more of Polly Styrene from X-Ray Spex. Aside from this, the riffing is often fast paced and heavy. One highlight is Bloodlust, with a neckbreaking punk riff sped up to thrash metal pace. It is unpolished, crusty 1980s underground energy distilled into three minutes. The other side to this are the longer songs like Search Eternal with its lengthy, crunching introduction and more complex structure that hints vaguely at more progressive leanings that aren’t realised until later on. (The lyrics hint at this crossroads as well, being an intriguing mix of punk rabble-rousing and more nerdy Lord of the Rings worship). Maybe the very best thing here, though, is the glorious blues-rock thunder of Awaken, even if it is wallowing in scuzz.

It’s certainly not all worthwhile. Some things here are just too raw, making them worth more as curiosities for devotees of the band than good casual listening, particularly on the second CD where the live recordings are situated. If your ears don’t shy from bleeding rawness, then this is well worth your time. But even if you’re going to have to skip some of the less polished tracks (not that any of this could be described as polished), this is a worthy archive of totally unpretentious, fierce and high energy British heavy metal.