DEATH SS In Death Of Steve Sylvester

METAL MASTER 1988

Newly reissued by Shadow Kingdom, this peculiar platter from 1988 – simultaneously a debut LP and a long-awaited comeback after a series of demos and an EP – is arguably the best introduction to Italy’s most notorious, eccentric 80s metal band, who were actually active as early as 1977. With an obsessive devotion to horror bordering on derangement (bandmates dressed as The Vampire, The Mummy, The Werewolf and Death, each getting their own theme song here) and a passionate blend of epic heavy metal, trippy occult doom, shock rock theatrics and proto-black metal posturing, Death SS were a shadowy missing link in metal’s tapestry, making King Diamond look like Dame Vera Lynn.