Vehemency Praising Satan compiles re-recorded and rare material from Netherland’s Heretic’s back catalogue, providing a sweet whole of old school thrash/black metal, rock and punk in 13 tracks and 40 minutes. Stop reading already if you’re expecting something innovative.

After a dozen of modern 200 beats per minute metal albums that I’ve heard recently, Praising Satan is refreshing with its almost laid-back rock rhythms. No blast beats are in sight, basic rock’n’roll beats dominate these simple songs of palm-muted power chords. The vocalist, spewing out his lyrics in semi-clean thrash metal shouts, delivers lots of reverence for Satan but in kind of tongue in cheeck spirit, it sounds. Don’t expect any deep Satanic philosophy. It’s more for the old school shocking value I would guess, in the very vein of those old Venom and Bathory records, records that have clearly influenced Heretic’s sound.

Although most of this material is lately re-recorded, it sounds old. It’s not raw and rehearsal-like at all, but it has the charm of 80s or something along the line. My personal favourites reside near the end of the compilation, namely ”Hellfire Satanist” and ”Black Metal Overlords”, really dusty and filthy pieces that differ a bit from the other tracks’ productions.

I didn’t have high expectations for Praising Satan or even Heretic in general, but I was pleasantly surprised. In spite of the really generic musical style, Heretic manages to do it rather well. This isn’t my usual cup of tea but provides some ass kicking material anyhow, even more so in live settings, I’m sure. Recommendable for all the old school maniacs, obvisously, though I’m unaware how much these re-recorded tracks differ from the originals.