RECORD OF THE WEEK: MIDNIGHT

Midnight: Steel, Rust and Disgust (Metal Blade Records)

Midnight releasing a covers album? You’d probably expect Motörhead bangers, strains of pure Venom and a couple of Tank tracks. After all, they made pretty decent fists of Dirty Love and In League With Satan.

But instead, mainman Athenar has paid homage to his homeland, dedicating this album to the sounds of Cleveland and Akron.

It’s a sonic tour of Ohio’s basements and backstreets, where gutter punks, scuzzy metalheads and spectral rock n’ rollers lie in wait, switchblades at the ready. It’s a celebration of the cities’ musical architecture, smeared in the grime of Midnight. Hell, even the song titles mirror Athenar’s own charred canon. Iron Beast, Black Leather Rock and I’m Insane… they’re just pure Midnight, aren’t they?

What’s so surprising is the sheer scope of this record, which stretches from the 50s to the noughties. Frenzy, from notorious Cleveland hellraiser Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was released back in ’57. Midnight turn it into the filthiest, most raucous rock n’ roll song you’re ever likely to hear. Indeed, it’s a perfect fit for this masked mob, who are no strangers to shock rock aesthetics.

In contrast, there’s I’m Insane, a 2003 track by thrashers Synastryche – who Athenar would watch in a garage down his street, back in the day. It’s defiant, spikey heavy metal… and a long way from Hawkins’ rock n’ roll theatrics. Yet both of these tracks are right at home.

Two originals make the cut. Opener Cleveland Metal is a song about Cleveland metal. “Our veins bleed mercury” snarls Athenar as he unleashes this anti-anthem – a song on a par with the imperious Fuck Off And Live. The title track is slower, gnarlier and sleazier… a sonic stench rising up from Cleveland’s sewers.

But the cover tunes take the spotlight here – and with good reason.

Dead Boys’ 1978 dittie 3^rd Generation Nation was a phenomenal song, but like the rest of the punks’ We Have Come For Your Children album, it lacked bite. Athenar gives the track fangs and lets it tear your throat out. In Midnight’s grasp, it sounds huge.

Kratos’ Iron Beast would have stayed an obscure footnote in Cleveland’s 80s metal history, but here, it’s a marauding monster, stomping all over the album like a rabid mechagodzilla; likewise Carrions Keep from Athenar’s old buddies, False Hope. The track only appears on the band’s ’87 demo, Cease To Exist, but now it’s been reborn, in a torrent of sinewy riffs and surging percussion.

Midnight also dig up cuts by proto punks Electric Eels and Rocket From The Tombs, and score a bullseye with Rock n’ Roll Fever, from Akron-born country renegade David Allan Coe (who’d even served time in Screamin’ Jay Hawkins). Unsurprisingly, it kicks ass. A lot of ass.