Pre-order: Sacrifice, Mad Butcher, The Night Eternal, Insight

Dying Victims Productions is proud to announce the following new Pre-orders:

DVP-R 006 Sacrifice – Total Steel LP

RELICS FROM THE CRYPT, the sub-label of DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS dedicated to keeping the past alive, is proud to present a vinyl LP reissue of the cult second album of Japan’s SACRIFICE, Total Steel. Licensed from Carnal Beast.

From their humble beginnings in 1985 on to their super-cult debut album, 1987’s Crest of Black, Japan’s SACRIFICE have stood for uncompromising, world-eating, thrashy METAL. Let’s reiterate: thrashy heavy metal rather than pure thrash metal. Thick and viscous is their thrust, with straightforward songwriting and exceptionally mean delivery. However, it was with 1990’s Total Steel where they’d perfect that signature style. 

Much like Japanese punk takes bog-standard tropes and upends them in unique ways, so, too, did SACRIFICE do such with crossover on Total Steel. Aptly titled in its dedication to rivetheaded ignorance-is-bliss, Total Steel is a nine-song/46-monster which mainlines then-contemporaneous Cro-Mags, Venom, Razor, Carnivore, the UK’s Sacrilege, Nasty Savage, The Exploited, and even early Celtic Frost into something that sounds like all those simultaneously and nothing like ‘em at all. Credit is due to the band’s bullheaded approach to riffing: hammer/hammer/hammer, hypnotically so, stripping everything down to its barbaric basics and then build ‘em up to towering heights. Literally, you DROWN in their crush here, as nearly every vocal-led track tops five minutes, allowing for maximal immersion. Likewise, SACRIFICE’s execution is creepy and sleazy in equal measure, spitting forth attitude even when the linguistic translations go astray. But, the closing couplet of “Don’t Wanna Be Back in Black Days” and “Cold Storm” perhaps perfectly underline their particular headspace. 

Amazingly, Total Steel sounds as refreshing today as time-locked as it sounded in 1990. Fans of Power Trip and Iron Age on to maniacs for metalpunk and those who hunt for Combat Core, bow before SACRIFICE! 

– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special edition on halloween orange vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch.

Out 17th December

DVP-R 007 Mad Butcher – Metal Meat LP

RELICS FROM THE CRYPT, the sub-label of DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS dedicated to keeping the past alive, is proud to present a LONG-overdue reissue of MAD BUTCHER’s cult-classic second album, Metal Meat, on vinyl LP format. 

While it would seem that MAD BUTCHER were inspired by Germany’s legendary Destruction, the truth is rather the other way around: MAD BUTCHER predated Destruction by a number of years, and began even earlier than Teutonic metal mainstays Accept, Steeler, Grave Digger, and Living Death. As such, they were one of the first real metal bands in Germany to pick up sonic influence from the burgeoning NWOBHM movement and the early US metal scene. And what they delivered with their ragged ‘n’ righteous debut album, 1985’s Lightning Metal Attack, stands immortal to this day even though it’s largely remained a cult curio among diehard metal collectors. RELICS FROM THE CRYPT reissued it on vinyl in late 2020, and now grants MAD BUTCHER’s equally electric second album, Metal Meat, the same treatment. 

Originally released on the long-dormant Metal Enterprises in 1987, Metal Meat is both an intensification of that rough-around-the-edges but addictingly spirited debut and a smoother, more-finessed version of it. It’s imperative to understand that that Lightning Metal Attack was rather “behind the times” when it was originally released in 1985, given that MAD BUTCHER’s subgenre-defiant sound spanned ALL heavy metal of the day, from NWOBHM to the early ‘80s US sound, before speed metal and then thrash splintered forth from that wider stylistic pool. That they then kinda cobbled it together into an adrenaline rush strikingly similar to speed metal is no mean feat. By comparison – and, crucially, retaining the same lineup as the debut – Metal Meat’s speed metal songs cruised with confidence and ease, in no small part to the improved production, which was still considered “raw” by mainstream standards. However, it’s those hooky, vaguely “mainstream” strutters here that make Metal Meat such a wild and enduring spin. There’s never gonna be a moment where one would ever mistake MAD BUTCHER for a hair-metal band, but a great deal of this album sidles most sinisterly next to that oft-maligned idiom, the band’s more pronounced hard-rock swagger suggesting the Sunset Strip rather than the industrial wasteland of their native Ruhr. Put another way, Metal Meat is far closer to the dark & heavy sleaze of early W.A.S.P. or even Exciter’s way-ugly Unveiling the Wicked than, say, Poison or Ratt. And of course, MAD BUTCHER’s innate German-ness rings loud and clear here, with vocalist/bassist Harry Elbracht delivering an effortlessly creepy performance. 

And while MAD BUTCHER would disband in 1990, after two officially released albums and a third posthumously released in 2020, their legendry among the true-metal faithful was forever etched with Lightning Metal Attack – and further etched into the annals of CULT with its inadvertently strange follow-up. Now, for posterity, RELICS FROM THE CRYPT will deliver this Metal Meat right to your table, on the format it so deserves: vinyl! 

– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special edition on white vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch.

Out 17th December

DVP 199 The Night Eternal – Moonlit Cross MC

DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present THE NIGHT ETERNAL’s highly anticipated debut album, Moonlit Cross on music cassette format.

It was but 2019 when THE NIGHT ETERNAL released their bolt-from-the-blue self-titled EP. For a first public recording, The Night Eternal was nothing short of masterful, revealing a depth and wisdom far beyond the band’s meager years. Across its three primary tracks and poignant cover of Judas Priest's “(Take These) Chains” did the German quintet concoct a supremely powerful and stirringly moody sort of heavy metal, both traditionally pure-steel in their dynamics yet also brimming with epicness and a sort of forlorn heroism. Not for nothing did it garner THE NIGHT ETERNAL a handsome amount of attention.

Now, with more eyes on them, THE NIGHT ETERNAL emerge from the shadows with their full-length debut, Moonlit Cross. Ever aptly titled, Moonlit Cross moves like a travelogue across the mysteries of the night – and of course, THE NIGHT ETERNAL’s namesake itself. Still night-prowling like that first EP, here on their first full-length salvo do the band reveal more (and more powerful, and moodier) shades of their epic sound, bridging both the epic end of traditional metal as well as the root variants which preceded it.

As the band explain, “In comparison to the self-titled EP, on Moonlit Cross we´ve included even more influence from various kinds of guitar-driven rock music, ranging from the ‘70s to the ‘80s, which shaped us as musicians. Combining it with our own sinister style of heavy metal allowed us to exactly create the music we’d been missing in today’s scene. We invite you on a journey to the lowest depths of our hearts.”

Indeed, the swagger THE NIGHT ETERNAL exhibit here owes more to early hard rock, invoking such names as Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, Scorpions as well as heavier sounds reminiscent of Mercyful Fate and Black Sabbath´s Dio-era. Yet, familiar as these touchstones may sound, the darkness they so dramatically drape across their compositions puts Moonlit Cross on another realm altogether – and one, it must be said, that evades easy categorization, be it stylistically or chronologically. Simply, THE NIGHT ETERNAL are putting their proverbial hearts on their sleeves, and the music they create is an honest, authentic, and goosebump-inducing reflection of the incredibly vital blood pumping in those hearts.

Massive hooks, sweeping dynamics, high drama, and of course, the commanding vocals of frontman Ricardo, all wrapped in a rich ‘n’ robust production by Ralf Praekelt, with mastering by Chris Common at Twin Hills Recording – THE NIGHT ETERNAL have truly arrived with Moonlit Cross.

– MC with sticker, button and download code.

Out 19th November

DVP 200 Insight – Chapter I: Before the Trial MC

DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present INSIGHT’s new ep, Chapter I: Before the Trial on music cassette format.

The Chilean Peñaflor/Santiago scene strikes again, this time with the eerie heavy metal act INSIGHT. This entity consists of (ex) members of acts such as Ripper, Hemisferio, Hellish or Armoured Knight (among many more). After some line up changes and switching from their Spanish mother tongue on their demo and debut ep to English on this new ep, the band has finally found their sound. Which is an unusual take on heavy metal, drawing inspirations from various old school metal styles and combining them into one complex, yet accessible unit. Above all throne the captivating vocals of Dante Dubo. 

Chapter I: Before the Trial is the first in a series of three eps which tell the story of a higher being named Azael which studies the nature of humanity. Enter the universe of Azael and dive into Chapter I: Before the Trial!

– MC with sticker, button and download code.

Out 22nd October