SATAN – Cruel Magic CD

Every song is so good that you would never find me skipping any on a playthrough, but this is also one of the rare cases where a single/video is my favorite, "The Doomsday Clock", which has some of the most amazing, endless streams of riffs I've ever heard, drawing a lot from their Pariah years when they dazzled with tunes like "Puppet Regime". This is that busy, but fronted with those brief, beautiful acoustics, and those the classical guitar influence threaded through the faster hooks. Brian's vocal arrangements are absolutely bananas, with a little operatic counterpoint. Even the lyrics are great, here and elsewhere through Cruel Magic; they show some effort rather than dabbling in dumb metal stereotypes, and though I wouldn't call them poetic necessarily, they posit sensible and serious prose that can match the gravity and impressiveness of the musicianship. And when this tune transitions into the raging speed-metal piracy of "Legions Hellbound"...I'm a straight man, people, but goddamn do I whistle and catcall like a construction worker stereotype when this album struts on by.