In the summer of 2019, Sacrilege released ‘Court of The Insane’, a shamelessly old fashioned metal album that managed to be one of the worst discs of the year.  Workmanlike riffs dredged up from 1984 coupled with lyrics like “Am I guilty of the things what they say / And who are they anyway?” led to an unintentionally funny listening experience.

Moving forwards, the veteran UK metal band’s contribution to 2020 is a re-recording of an old song titled ‘In Hell’, for which they’ve shared a brand new video.

Originally released in 2015 on their ‘6Six6’ album, ‘In Hell’ best typifies the band’s old fashioned metal style in that its loaded with massive riffs and an overwrought vocal.  As songs go, it certainly would have worked better all round if the band actually had someone who could sing…and the music hadn’t shamelessly stolen from ‘Black Sabbath’ by Black Sabbath.

True to form, the riffs are coupled with abysmal lyrics in the finest Sacrilege tradition, with the opening verse “Be in my eyes, you can see my lies / Come to hell, you can breathe the smell” being particularly noteworthy.  It’s everything that bands like Bad News set out to satirise, but taken very seriously and seemingly with no self-awareness.

To be fair to the band, though, the new recording has heavier riffs and a much more forceful vocal. Even if the end result somehow manages to sound worse than its ‘Six6Six’ counterpart, it at least sounds like a genuine companion to the ‘Court of the Insane’ album and the low budget video – with its many nods to old horror films – looks as if it were fun to make.