ALBUM REVIEW: Rebirth By Blasphemy – Midnight
Given the sheer wealth of creativity heavy music has experienced in recent times, sometimes, you just can’t beat hearing the raw and unshackled foundations of what makes metal so damn enjoyable in the first place. This is something that MIDNIGHT take in their stride. Channelling a hefty worship of legendary trailblazers MOTÖRHEAD and VENOM, the Ohio hell-raisers have ruled the roost of the underground since their explosive inception back in 2002. And with their fourth full-length effort, Rebirth By Blasphemy, the band look set to continue to rule with an iron fist.
An unpretentious joyride of relentlessly catchy riffing and razor-sharp vocals from band mastermind Athenar, Rebirth By Blasphemy picks up where 2017’s Sweet Death And Ecstasy left off and offers ten tracks of badass heavy metal. Fucking Speed and Darkness opens the album in glorious fashion as MIDNIGHT instantly fire on all cylinders through a ferocious execution of hair-raising riffing and vicious vocal snarls that fires the intensity up to the maximum and this intensity is maintained throughout the album’s runtime. From The Sounds of Hell‘s galloping riffing or the one-two punch of Escape The Grave and Devil’s Excrement, MIDNIGHT are out for blood and with every strike, they land the knock-out blow.
When you have a song that is as glorious as You Can Drag Me Through Fire as a finale to a record, you know you are striking gold. Here, MIDNIGHT channel their worship of the glory days of metal’s past as scorching twin guitars dance and dual over Athenar‘s strongest vocal deliveries on the entire record and the snarled bark of “burn me you bitch!” before unfolding into a outrageously cool solo stands as one of the highlights of the album.
It’s not all out guns blazing though, there are times on the record where MIDNIGHT slow the pace to a slick mid-tempo romp, allowing the subtleties to their catchy sound to truly sink their claws in deeper. Rising Scum is a prime example of this where the tempo is slowed to a rolling beat rather than the blistering pace of the early stages of the album, allowing incredibly cool lead guitar work to reign triumphantly over a rather simple riff and Athenar‘s snarls hit all the more harder. Similarly, the neat riffwork on Warning From The Reaper is an instant earworm as the snappy inter-changing between guitars and vocals play off each other incredibly effectively. It’s moments like this that demonstrate the subtleties behind MIDNIGHT‘s adrenaline-surging charge.
Rebirth By Blasphemy doesn’t stray off the beaten path of MIDNIGHT‘s pre-existing musical template, rather it refines and intensifying the sound that made this band such a beloved piece of metal’s underground in the first place. Never taking itself too seriously or looking to explore a new musical avenue, this album is a riot with the defiant and resilient heart of the rock & roll attitude lying at its beating heart. It’s cool, evil and utterly exhilarating and will strike a chord for anyone who has even the remotest interest in heavy metal.
Rating: 9/10
Rebirth By Blasphemy is set for release on January 24th via Metal Blade Records.
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