As promised (check the Paul Chain Violet Theatre post), here’s the mysterious and collectible DEATH SS 7″ from 1984.
I’m sure, everybody familiar with the work of italian band GOBLIN and movies such as “Suspiria” or “Profondo Rosso” from Dario Argento or slashers like “Anthropophagus” and the many italian Zombie movies of the late 70s and early 80s will get the vibe from this 7″. Totally morbid and sickly-sweet, walking on the edge between kitsch and glory. Just outstanding and very, very timeless.
The little I know of this 7″: Due to the bad pressing (or rather mastering), it got withdrawn immediately or more likely, never was on sale. Rumor has it, there are only a few dozen around. I used to have a friend (the same guy with coke and jellybear diet and the “Charles Manosn is innocent” writing on his leather jacket, btw), who was so fanaticly into this band that he spent a lot of money in buying off all remaining copies of “Evil Metal” cause he wanted to be the only person in the world who has this, haha. Don’t remember clearly how many he collected, but he had a few of them.
You might ask yourself now, what the hell does the band name mean? Well, I have no idea, but I remember reading Paul Chain in an interview, saying that it didn’t have anything to do with the historical SS (nationalsocialist paramilitary group) and that Chain said of himself to be coming from a left radical background, actually.
Now you know that writing funny things with silver ink on black leather jackets was very hip in the Switzerland underground scene of the early 80s. I used to have the DEATH SS logo on the back of my leather jacket, followed by a huge VENOM “Welcome to Hell” pentagram and DRI, COC, ANTIDOTE, SLAYER etc. (good bad music for life). One day, a nazi skin crossed my way and tapped me on my shoulder. I was scared cause I used to get beat up quite often for my looks back then and had lost 2 denim jackets with stickers already: We called that “getting stripped”, when normally Teds or Rockers would grab your jacket and tear it apart, cause they felt kids shouldn’t walk around like that. So I thought, fuck, now I’m getting my shit from a nazi (he was a huge mofo). To my surprise, he grinned at me like a school girl, asking me if I wanted to go for a beer. No, I said, I’m not homosexual (I was 15 or 16). He stopped grinning and walked off. Just like that. So i walked my way too, questioning myself what the hell just happened here - until I told about it to an older Punk friend of mine, who I met at the local record shop. He just laughed, tears in his eyes and pointed on the DEATH SS-logo on the back of my leather jacket. That’s how I became antifascist.
On Soulseek, you’ll find a rip of this in which somebody has tried to fix the pressing mistake. Unfortunately, the drop outs are still there, though a little less penetrating than on the vinyl. I’m sure that somebody with the necessary experience and software could make this sound much better. Drop me a line if you need wav-files!
And finally - as a bonus I also ripped DEATH SS’ best song, the incredible and never topped “Black and Violet” from the ultra rare “Heavy Metal Eruption” comp LP. That leaves only one more comp song to be digitized and that is the song “Terror” from a promo-only comp LP.
Check the band photo (left) from this comp - crazy bastards.
Chains of Death.mp3
Inquisitor.mp3
Schizophrenic.mp3
From “Heavy Metal Eruption - The italian Way of Heavy Metal” (1984):
Black and Violet.mp3
PS: On a side note, one must add that this is the ultimate “hearing things out” record. For instance, in the beginning of “inqusitor”, Chain probably sings:
“It’s rusty tea, and it’s sanctus seven, full torn bloath and really hard, humble toes and holy hosses, guess it’s time for roll away (…)”
And here’s Tony’s request cause he wanted to have a quality rip of the WARDS mighty debut.
