Night Demon - Screams In The Night

Hey, you - do you like heavy metal? We know, we know, what a daft question, this is Rock Song of the Week, after all. That’s like asking the raving madman down the end of your street whether he likes strong cider; in both cases, the answer is likely to be an emphatic yes, with no small amount of drooling.

Well, if chunky riffs and 80s style wailing really are your cup of tea, then this might just make your whole week; Night Demon are as heavy metal as heavy metal gets. Roaring out of Ventura, California carrying the torch left by their forebearers in the New Wave of British/American Heavy/Traditional Metal scenes, Night Demon are the sort of band that motorcycle jackets dream of being adorned with. Every track is a loud and proud homage to bands like Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath – the list goes on.

These are no small pastiches, either. Each track has about a metric crap-tonne of passion for the genre poured into it, finely tuned as carefully as any master craftsman would, every note designed to emulate but also build upon the legacy of the greats. If you heard the band on the radio without knowing that they were formed in 2011, you’d be running around shaking people and demanding to see the front page of today’s newspaper to make sure you didn’t fall asleep in a time machine again.

Thundering along like an out of control semi-truck driven by every member of Motörhead at the same time, Screams In The Night is a pulse pounding trip back in time to when you could fail a drug test after accidentally bumping into a lead guitarist. It’s got every hallmark of all the songs you know and love – galloping drums, big distorted riffs and more sneer than Dave Mustaine’s mirror. It’s guaranteed to raise a smile and no small amount of Hell, so apply liberally to any part of you that recognises what music is and throw up those horns!