Seventh Angel, a British Christian metal band formed in 1987 by Ian Arkley, Andrew Blount and Scott Rawson, were coined as the pioneers of the Thrash metal scene in Great Britain and considered to be the best metal act in the UK (back in the days!). Their sound has a combination of Doom and Thrash metal, and had performed concerts at the Greenbelt festival, supporting the American rock band One Bad Pig and headlined the Metal Meltdown festival in 1990, played concerts in Germany and the Netherlands before disbanding in 1992.
The album titled “Demo Collection” surfaced the social media early in 2017, signed by the record label Bombworks Records and released on 25th April 2017. Bombworks Records had been pestering Ian to release some of the bands early demos, and when Ian finally relented, he blessed all his fans with these hidden demos. “Heed the Warning“ demo, which were released with some live tracks in past years, had been taken direct from Ian’s personal cassette and remastered so it’s a completely different version. Jeff Mortimer remastered these demos ranging from Red Demo (March 1989), Rehearsal Demo (November 1989), Heed The Warning Demo (1990), And Dust Of Years Demo (2008).
“Heed the Warning” opens with a bell chiming, swooshing in with a hypnotic tapping on the lead guitar, chunky and meaty guitar riffs, accentuates the heaviness with shrilling voice. The blitzing guitar solo is subdued within the loud rhythm guitars. “In the name of Christ” starts off with a tremolo patch which is quickly lost as the song progresses and picks up pace, intermittent reminder “We Rock!!” is heard throughout the song, giving the song a punch with an attempt to lure in the audience to sing along. “Betrayer” is full of rugged guitar riffs being pulled off mono-chromatically, featuring plenty of blast beats on a doom styled riff.
“Dr Hatchet” appears to have a modern post rock tone with a subtle tinge of thrash in it towards the outro of the song. Now with “Divine takeover” the band forays into the spectrum of pure unadulterated thrash with extreme shredding not shedding the melody, but going ballistic with every progression. This is my favourite track of this album for the very same reason. “Locked up in chains” exhibits the raw and meaty guitar riffs, and a high-toned bass which sounds very distinctive from the rest of the songs.
“Seven Angels Part 1&2“ and “Forbidden Desires” pulverises right through your skull with its aggressive and loud guitar tones, thrashing blast beats, and the high octave vocals that continue to fuel the fire. “I of the Needle” although not as fast as its predecessors, has dark lyrics and elements of Doom and groove metal in the song with an acoustic outro for a change! The chugging guitars on this song calls for some serious headbanging.
We end this demo collection with “Lamentations” and “The Turning Tide”. “Lamentations” starts off with a melodic, dark and gloomy riff and has some pretty scathing vocals, the song forays to the Doom genre but retains a death metal-ish charm to it. This has to be the heaviest song of the album and demands multiple repeats till its etched in your memory. “The Turning Tide” retains the same vocal style as “Lamentation” and I guess that’s when Seventh Angel decided to bring in a new musical direction and changed their yesteryear’s sound to mix breed of Doom/Punk/Melodic Death metal with some bit of clean singing.
Production – The Demo’s are remastered and may have lost some of their original texture, but Seventh Angel are still able to pull it off well, considering that some songs were on tape.
Conclusion – I am hoping this demo gets the band back to studio, as the fans would be left hungry for more. If you haven’t already listened to them, I guess now it’s about time!
Rating: 7/10
Written by: Ankit Sood
Band Members:
Ian Arkley – guitars, vocals
Andrew “Tank” Thompson – drums
Simon Bibby – guitars
Mark Broomhead – bass
Track listing:
Red Demo (March, 1989)
01. Heed The Warning
02. In The Name Of Christ We Rock
03. Betrayer
Rehearsal Demo (November, 1989)
04. Dr. Hatchet
05. Divine Takeover
06. Betrayer
07. Locked Up In Chains
Heed The Warning Demo (March, 1990)
08. Forbidden Desire
09. Seven Angels Part 1 And 2
10. I Of The Needle
11. Heed The Warning
Dust Of Years Demo (2008)
12. Lamentations
13. The Turning Tide
Record Label: Bombworks Records, April 2017
Weblinks: Facebook
Buy the album here:
Holland: First Paradox
Norway: Nordic Mission