TRITON WARRIOR - Satan's Train / Sealed In A Grave
December 24, 2014, 9 years ago
(Supreme Echo Records)
Man, this one is hitting the spot right now, as I approach an age where I realize there is extreme importance in documenting music scenes of eras past. Here, BC-based Supreme Echo continue their archival series (see also: extremely cool two-song 1976 EP from teenage Ontario 70's hard rockers Sphex and ultra-weird pre-metal/punk of BC's Twitch, who employed black metal imagery in 1973) with this two-song 45 from Ontario's Triton Warrior, a fully rocking proto-metal affair originally recorded back in November of 1972. And that's huge, given that this one pounds and smokes harder than most anything from your collection from 1972, "Satan's Train" almost becoming trapped by '70s cliches (drum solo!) but emerging the victor nonetheless thanks to some insanely heavy Sabbath riffing and a very outrageous drum performance by one Ken Ambrose, who almost steals the show back there, but wisely taking a back seat to the killer guitar work when need be. Flip 'er over, make sure you've got one of those things for records that have big holes in the middle, and let "Sealed In A Grave" (reminder: this is 1972!) rip, the vocals holding it back slightly, but otherwise this is a frantic '70s rock/metal tune that shreds hard. I dunno, we pop boners over the latest Swedish retro proto-metal but why not just check out the real deal? Lots of fun photos to look at and a detailed band history to read in the liner notes round out this super reissue. Who knew Canadian metal history went back so far?
