Saint Vitus: Hallow's Victim [SST]

Why you'll love it

This SST pressing keeps the original seven-track running order, "War Is Our Destiny" to "Prayer for the (M)Asses." Dave Chandler's riffs and Scott Reagers' voice made it a cornerstone of American doom metal.

This edition

• SST Records catalogue edition
• Original seven-track running order

About the album

In 1985 the Los Angeles hardcore scene was playing as fast as humanly possible. Saint Vitus went the other way, and SST, the punk label that also housed Black Flag, put them out anyway, which tells you everything about how heavy these riffs were.

Guitarist Dave Chandler wrote the songs, several with singer Scott Reagers, and Mark Adams on bass and Armando Acosta on drums lock in at a crawl that still sounds enormous. "War Is Our Destiny" opens with a march, "White Stallions" gallops at a doom pace, and the seven-and-a-half-minute "Mystic Lady" stretches out into a slow, hypnotic grind. Side two flips between the short, sharp title track, "The Sadist" and "Just Friends (Empty Love)," before "Prayer for the (M)Asses" closes things down. Label chief Joe Carducci and SST house engineer SPOT produced, keeping the sound raw and close.

Reagers would step aside after this one and return a decade later for Die Healing, and the album lived on vinyl and tape for 25 years before SST finally put it on CD. It moves at roughly the pace of our Saturday afternoon queue, and is considerably louder.

Also at Kops: more Saint Vitus on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On SST Records, a reissue of the 1985 album.