Underground Sounds: Hey Satan – Hey Satan

Label: Cold Smoke Records
Band: Hey Satan
Origin: Switzerland

Ok, I’ll admit that I started listening to this band for the simple reason that their name isĀ Hey Satan. Sue me, it’s a catchy name and the artwork also looked appealing. As you may have guessed, there’s nothing black metal about this record, but there’s some good sounds to get down to on this record.

Hey Satan hails from Switzerland, a basis for cool and catchy tunes. Bands from there often have their own approach to things and these guys sound nothing like you’d picture a Swiss band to sound like. The music the group produces is that of a sun scorched desert, with a cold beer in your hand. Oh yeah!

Blearing riffs that seem to hang in the still air endlessly, grooving vocals… this is stoner the way we love it! Fuzzy effects create that sweltering, hot sound on ‘Legal Aspects of Love’. The traces of grunge still freshly detectable in the slow, heavy guitar parts, this is some stuff to rock out to. The delivery is perfect, but with a bite when the band adds some agression to the mix.

Think Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss, but with a little twist here and there. The continuous warm, fuzzy wall of guitars creates that feeling of everything standing still. For a moment and then it all takes of and you can almost smell the tarmac under your wheels. Vocalist Francois can switch between that static style of singing to the more energetic, pumped up style of Neil Fallon (yes, the guy from Clutch). Then again, the band can sound really big on songs like ‘Bastardizer’.

The coolest thing about this record, is that it is immensely energetic, upbeat and catcy. Sure, it’s sticking to the classic road to glory, but there’s a reason that this works. Surprising track is ‘Black Flags Down’, which is smooth and catchy one moment and harsh and violent the other. There’s a lot of skill here and this band has everything to entice fans of the genre once more with this debut.

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