An awesome collection of mid-90s EP tracks from Japanese black thrashers Abigail, from earlier in their career before the band evolved into the pussy-obsessed necro-punks that have released such classic slabs of carnal metal as Forever Street Metal Bitch, Intercourse And Lust and Sweet Baby Metal Slut. It's hard not to gush about these guys; Abigail are one of my favorite "black metal" bands of all time, and certainly my favorite Japanese black metal band right alongside avant-garde weirdoes Sigh (the two bands have in fact shared members at various points over the past twenty years). However, Abigail's version of black metal is a cruder, snottier beast, much closer in sound and spirit to Venom and the newer blackened, speed-metal punk of bands like Midnight, Speedwolf, and Syphilitic Vaginas, even hinting at the grungy ultra-distorted punk stomp of bands like Malveillance and Sump at times, with ripping punk-influenced guitar riffs, Yasuyuki's weird snarling, choking vocal delivery, and lots of wickedly catchy hooks.

The twelve songs collected on The Lord Of Satan come from the band's split with Funeral Winds and the Confound Eternal and Descending from a Blackened Sky Eps, all from 1993 through 1996. While there's still TONS of that sloppy, blackened speedpunk going on with these early songs, there's also lots of actual black metal too, where the band will suddenly launch into a blazing blast attack (like on "We Shall Not Await The Dawn" and the feral savagery of "Swing Your Hammer"), something which you hear a lot less of on their newer albums. Abigail always throw in all kinds of neat, quirky touches into their black thrash as well, like the melodic backing "woah-oh's" on "Dawn" that add a weird Misfits flourish to the blackened blasting fury, and the KILLER synthesizer track "Darkness Steals" that closes the first side of the album and sounds like a cross between Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" and a late 80's horror movie soundtrack. There's more creepy electronic music on the b-side with "Descending From A Blackened Sky", where sky-gazing synthesizers and a simple keyboard melody play over deep bass tones and a slow pounding drumbeat. These weird little interludes add a lot to the depraved dungeon-glow that surrounds Abigail's warped Nipponese blackthrash.

We've got both the vinyl edition of The Lord Of Satan that comes in a deluxe heavyweight glossy gatefold that also includes a black and white lyric insert and a large Abigail poster, and a high quality Cd edition.