Midnight
No Mercy for Mayhem

THE REVIEW

A premise is urgently needed, unusual because it is truly curious. Midnight is actually a one-man band: Jamie Walters - aka Athenar - plays all the instruments you can hear on any album by his group, writes every song and every lyric. Only in concerts is he forced to be accompanied by support musicians. Initially conceived as a side project to the bands he played in - Abdullah, Boulder, and Destructor - Midnight ultimately turned out to be the artist's crowning achievement.

This second release from the "band" is not far removed from the debut three years earlier, Satanic Royalty: we are faced with an angry speed metal, as clean in its production as it is chaotic in its vocals (between scream and frenzied shout) as in the two guitar lines, one engaged in delivering sharp riffs and the other in unleashing dizzying solos descending from Motorhead. In perpetual oscillation between rhythm and melody, the great achievement of the shameless and radical Midnight is to perfectly fuse form and content without leaving anything to chance; their strength is not innovation, but the ability to wield the same weapons from start to finish, without ever wavering. From the cover onwards, you enter a universe dominated by satanism, the most acidic sort, where lyrics about rape and murder are inserted, all without descending into the ridiculous; the risk is avoided thanks to the determination to omit all irony, any softening of tones. Entering Walters' world, you slide into presses of sick cities and infernal chasms, being led, by the end of the half hour, to the presence of a whirlwind that is liberating: a catharsis.