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Satan's Satyrs, "Wild Beyond Belief!"
Equal doses of Hell’s Angels, bad drugs, and Russ Meyer; Clayton Burgess' downer biker metal hits the spot like a tire iron across the jaw. More The Born Losers than Sons of Anarchy, Satan's Satyrs deserve the term badass as much as any b-movie anti-hero. This is music that has come to town, decided it wants your girl and she has decided she prefers them to you.
The lo-fi rumble heralds Burgess’ coming like the roar of Harleys coming down the empty highways. It sounds like trouble, the kind of trouble I want to be a part of. The scuzzy music of Satan’s Satyrs has the same violent and crazy vibe of early Electric Wizard but cut with speed instead of weed. On "Carnival of Souls," Burgess lets rip with some face-melting fuzz guitar and reveling in his outsider status: "Alien I’ve always been/Recoil from helping hand." (I envision him playing his guitar with a switchblade rather than a pic.)
While never reaching the out and out camp of The Wild Bunch, Burgess sometimes swerves dangerously close to parody. However, much like the aforementioned Wizard, the reverence for ‘70s exploitation imagery and 1%-er biker attitude seems too genuine to be mistaken for a joke (otherwise I am sure they would be Satan’s Satires). "Strange Robes" blows out the speakers like an over-revved engine; the music cloaking the room in thick black exhaust smoke.
The album peaks with the fantastic "Bellydancer’s Delight" which coils around the room like a snake before going straight for the throat with a phenomenal instrumental coda. Suddenly it bursts into the album’s closer, "Satan’s Satyrs." The killer riff is backed with simple but brilliant organ. The result is a terrific, adrenaline-pumping finish to a grimy, greasy album of filth. As the last notes echo away, it is hard not to imagine the back of a leather-clad motorcyclist heading into the horizon, middle finger raised back at you.
 
