Cleveland. My favorite little mistake-by-the-lake city, where girls go missing for a decade … Don’t know what I am talking about, start following some US national news. Anyway, I like Cleveland. As ugly as its soft industrial underbelly might be, I have had good luck with that city, going there on business or pleasure. The trips to Peabody’s have been numerous, and most of them rewarding. Cleveland also spawned a number of underground cult units like Nunslaughter and Midnight, all connected at the hip by the venerable Hells Headbangers label. Reaching back into its vaults, the label now pulls out what they think is a treasure of local Cleveland hardcore punk scene, Satanic Threat, the band with the connection to the aforementioned Midnight and Nunslaughter, in the form of shared bandmembers.

Someone needs to explain to me how these underground legends are made. Satanic Threat only recorded eight songs ever, but apparently became one, and sold 1000 copies of their one and only In to Hell. While I totally dig the Swedish hardcore punk of the likes of Wolfbrigade, Satanic Threat is a direct exercise in primitivism, delivered fast, simple, on one-note riffs, with lyrics loaded with blasphemy and “sung” in a high-pitched hysterical lament. Since Satanic Threat apparently existed only for a short while, they only managed one live performance, and the release loads the same tracks live as it does with the studio “production”. Live performance of Satanic Threat is as electric and full of fuzz as the guitar amps they use. Coming as if from somebody’s basement, I wonder how they managed to pack in there those 1,000 people who were probably the buyers of the recorded album, directly responsible for Satanic Threat legendary status. Delivered at the highest nerve level, this music takes you by the storm and demands total letting go. If you manage to achieve that level of cathartic cleanliness you will feel it, as In to Hell is not without simplistic obvious catchiness. Just try not to think and don’t forget to hate Christ.

I always tell my kids – one of the biggest favors I am giving them, while the rest of the folks around them go to churches of various kinds on Sundays, they get to stay home and enjoy another half of that blessed day they would have otherwise lost to mindless prayer, etc. The kids in Satanic Threat apparently weren’t so lucky, as their parents dragged them to all of those establishments, which is very much manifested in In To Hell lyrical messages. Cursing at the Cross, Don’t Follow Him, Small God, Big Cross and Guilty of Hating Christ tell all. Somebody must have overdosed on Christianity in their youth.