By Vinnie Apicella

A new record deal… and new deal with the Devil, may one suppose? The cold winds are blowing and the evil one hath returned, darker and more conspiring than ever. The pioneer of horror rock, oft-misunderstood, but never to be ignored, has the wheels of doom in motion once again in creating his latest masterpiece that will exorcise the good graces and twist the heads right off those of sound mind and pure heart. "Satan's Child", the sixth chapter to this ongoing dark saga is everything you'd hope to expect without compromising the continuing evolution that's prevailed since their first frightful images haunted a new legion of followers over ten years since its birth. The three-member cult, first developed on the underrated and greatly mishandled "Blackaciddevil" of a few years back, conjures up stirring images and gripping drama, unfolding in an awe-inspiring backdrop saturated in black. Addressing everything from hate, anger, love and this decrepit material world in which we live, the cataclysmic crooner throws open the gate to the underworld in grandiose fashion, letting loose the demon that's crawled amidst the shadows for far too long. For the unsuspecting listener, the descent begins where you'll first feel the hideousness of the "Five Finger Crawl" before taking the plunge into the "Belly of the Beast", later to realize your sad destiny lies "Cold Eternal", and finally ultimate acceptance in the role of the fallen one's offspring. The tightly structured, blues rock vibe of yesterday's been long since replaced in favor of modernity but where the last tended to get a little too cerebral for many of the tried and true, here we springboard from there, landing a fairly safe distance away… the after-effects realized of a respectable jab to the gut, eyes wide open, where fear and fulfillment clash in an apocalyptic bloodswirl.

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