HELL — Save us from Those who would Save us (review)

HELL — Save us from Those who would Save us album cover Single · 1983 · NWoBHM Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Certif1ed
The fiery end of the NWoBHM

It never ceases to amaze me, when digging through piles of dusty 45s produced by bands who remain largely unheard of, in that glorious half-decade from 1978-1983, how much awesome metal potential fell to the wayside.

This demo single from Hell is case in point, really - blistering, battering riffs of demonic darkness, tempered by genuinely sinister sounding keyboards and disturbing vocals with lyrics wrought from the darkest places inside the human soul.

A strident opening to Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us demands that you ignore the somewhat compressed production, and just try to imagine what today's beefed-up engineering could transform it into.

This excercise is worthwhile, as the structuring is quite similar to intros you might hear on, say Death's Scream Bloody Gore a couple of years later.

Pinch yourself as you note that this single was released in 1983, as the thrash metal kicks in, with guitar solos blazing all around, blink-and-you-miss-them instrumental fills, seriously infectious hooks, and all manner of instrumental lyric-dressing. The details are packed in densely, into this slamming, brutal slab of molten mayhem.

It's too easy to be distracted by the awful production - so choose the hard route and listen to the music. A bit like Mercyful Fate, but better, perhaps? I think so!

But the flipside is even better.

Check out that chunky riff - intertwined with the keys, it's got that Prog Metal sound all over it, and the technical details only serve to confirm that this is Prog Metal many years before it's claimed conception.

There's a lot of Satan inspiration here, and again, the devil (sic) is in the detail - you will (hopefully) hear a LOT of Black Metal bands rooted in the music here, but more than that, this will kick your ass back to the 1980s, and remind you what an amazing time in metal music it was.

Or you might simply hear a rather scrappily recorded and sloppily played NWoBHM demo. Your loss.

Unlike the Speed demo I reviewed earlier, this one is arguably worth the £200+ price tag that collectors pay - but fortunately there are at least 3 different demo tapes in unknown quantities around the second-hand shops and auction sites somewhere - and a Phoenix re-issue, if you can bear it - so it is possible to get your paws on this great music without selling one of your guitars.
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