Unreleased demo recordings 1985-1986.
Amati, Jolana, Musima, Regent and Vermona – if these terms mean anything to you, you certainly didn’t start playing metal in this millennium, and that’s precisely why you’re the target audience for this release. The fresh release from Metal Ör Die Records takes the listener back nearly four decades ago, to the time when the above names represented the pinnacle of technical background for a budding Hungarian musician.
This is the era when, in the absence of patchers, every second denim vest owner adorned their clothing with a blue ballpoint pen and rivets stolen from their father's workshop. Specifically, we are talking about 1986, one of the best years of thrash metal. Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Peace Sells…, Pleasure to Kill, Eternal Devastation, Obsessed by Cruelty, Morbid Visions, Beyond the Gates, of course. And here, the first heavy metal LP was released under the title Total Metal. The four-year phase delay voiced by Hammer's Lacik also had a strong influence on the political situation of the time.
In our country, young people who were already traveling in thrash that year were making noise, but in most cases they did not have the opportunity to make normal, i.e. studio recordings. We can easily find out which was the first official Hungarian thrash album, just as it would not cause any particular problem to point to the earliest Hungarian death metal LP (program cassette), or to name the very first Hungarian concert album in the metal genre. However, it would be impossible to clarify who was the first to play thrash metal on Hungarian soil, or which band was the first to record a demo in the genre.
As the label also writes, Sátán Metál is certainly not the first Hungarian thrash metal recording, as Atomic from Miskolc had already recorded a demo in 1985 (!!!). Whether the title applies to Atomic, Moby Dick or Beyond from Gyöngyös, the point is that the young musicians of the time started thrashing in sync with international trends.
For those with a keen eye, the recording released under the title Sátán Metál (Demo 1986) will not be completely new. It is undoubtedly in CD format, but the Eger-based label already released it on cassette a few years ago, in a very limited edition, and a two-song excerpt was also made on 7” vinyl. The release, available in digital form from mid-March and expected on CD for April Fools' Day, is a nearly three-quarter-hour recording – the band's leader, guitarist/singer Tamás Szilágyi, has certainly kept it on one side of a 90-minute Polimer cassette for decades.
The release has a new cover compared to the 2019 cassette version, with a map of B.-A.-Z. county in the background, since this is B.-A.-Z. Area Thrash Metal! Hopefully, it was clear from the above lines, without me having to point out too much, that this is a recording made in home conditions, almost four decades ago. It is worth approaching the audio material with today's ears only with this in mind. If the humorous cover doesn't deceive you – and why would it – the guys didn't bother mastering the tape recorded at Kőporos Studio near Győri Gate in Miskolc. So there's no post-production, just visceral, honest and naive thrash infused with black metal.
Speaking of Atomic, the Hungarian lyrics written by Tomi, who was then known as Brutál, in addition to the usual metal/satan themes, also touch on the atomic era in several songs, in keeping with the spirit of the times. Coming out in Miskolc with a song called Death Metal a year after Possessed: Seven Churches and before Scream, Bloody, Gore – well, that's not nothing. By the way, even the manuscripts from the time were found in the depths of a drawer for the booklet. The four members of Atomic probably got acquainted with the instruments during this period, but compared to a demo recording, the stuff is still there. The quartet members must have been on a strict Kreator/Slayer/Possessed diet these months, as the early works of these bands are mostly reflected in the black thrash metal compositions.
MÖD Records from Eger considers the exhumation of the ancient pieces of Hungarian extreme metal to be its mission, and János also created the label's predecessor with this goal in mind. If we stay with Atomic, where Sátán Metál (Demo 1986) comes from, there are certainly more demo recordings there that are worthy of a CD release. Suffice it to mention my personal favorite Who Hasn’t Been Back or the Everything For The Nothing tape. If you can’t wait until April Fools’ Day until the CD is released, you can listen to it above. A limited physical version is also in the works for collectors, the details of which are not yet known, the CD itself will be released in three hundred copies
Sample: metalordierex.bandcamp.com/album/atomic-s-t-n-met-l-demo-1986
