Connecticut-based progressive metal band SACRED OATH’s guitarist/vocalist Rob Thorne was in a dark place while writing his band’s latest and sixth studio album overall, Fallen (released May 28). His six-year-old cousin’s life was taken in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut at the end of last year, and he had plenty to get off his chest.

“I feel like there’s a real presence of evil on this record,” Thorne said. “I was really trying to come to terms with living with (this tragedy). For the first time in my life, I got confronted by, not just heavy metal ‘lets write about evil for fun,’ but real evil. My cousin’s six-year-old daughter was liquified by some psycho with an assault rifle and he’s never going to see her again. It just fucked with me.”

The band just celebrated its 25th anniversary by releasing Fallen and it’s a return to the band’s original lineup and its ’80s-metal sound, which is steeped in NWOBHM and USPM influences. In the early ’80s, the CT metal scene was a niche market within the metal world, spearheaded by bands such as OBSESSION, LEIGE LORD and FATES WARNING. Sacred Oath never reached its full potential back in the day. A few factors which figure into this is the inexperience of the band, their record label went bankrupt after their debut release and band in-fighting about which direction they should be headed in sound-wise.

“Our history is so fucked up,” Thorne said. “We broke up six months after our first album came out. We had so many problems and frustrations with (our label) Mercenary Records. We were so disappointed when the album was finally released and we started fighting with each other and when nothing panned out for me fast enough, I moved to CA. And that was it.

“I didn’t pick up and start doing Sacred Oath again until Denis Gulbey at Sentinel Steel Records heard about SOUNDSCAPE (Thorne’s other band) and got in touch with me in 1997-98 and wanted to re-issue the A Crystal Vision album in Europe. He said there was a market for it and I had no idea that anyone even remembered who Sacred Oath even was. People get confused by that huge hiatus.”

Demographics might also have been a factor in the band’s obscurity.

“Being from the Danbury area, we were more of a New York band than a Connecticut band. Danbury is a bedroom community for New York. Most people don’t even want to recognize that the far southwest is even part of Connecticut. It’s a different world. I run into people all the time that are from either the New Haven area or north of Hartford like Glastonbury or Enfield and they’ve never even heard of us. They can’t believe we’re from Connecticut. Bands like Obsession and Fates Warning were always dubbed as a Connecticut band, where we were never really a CT band. Even though nowadays we get pitched as a CT band.”

The new album, released on Thorn’s own Angel Thorne label certainly sounds like Sacred Oath. And it’s not just a conscious effort to sound like a band from the ’80s; it’s just what Sacred Oath does naturally. And with all the original members from its debut album on board, is just icing on the cake.

“I was really burned out about a year and a half ago and I wasn’t extremely motivated to crank out another record,” Thorne concludes. “But I was at a party and was talking about old times with the guys and thought I could have a lot of fun making a brand new record with the four original guys. I knew it would be a logistical nightmare because everybody’s spread out, but I knew we could get along. I just thought it was an inspiring idea.”