If there are two things consistent in the Midnight (aka Jamie Walters) camp it’s these two things: heavy fucking metal and chicks on album covers. For the first aspect, Midnight’s heavy metal isn’t the Helloween kind or the King Diamond kind. Rather, the Cleveland native espouses a Black Sabbath-meets-Motörhead-meets-Venom brew that rocks as hard as it evinces evil, the fuzzy late ’70/early ’80s kind of evil. On new album, Sweet Death and Ecstasy, Midnight’s third for Hells Headbangers, tracks like “Crushed By Demons,” “Penetratal Ecstasy,” and “Bitch Mongrel” feel like they were cast out of Hell and onto a blacklight felt poster, where Baphomet sits cross-legged atop a mountain of lusting women in various stages of undress. As for the second aspect, Midnight’s unafraid to use the power of half-naked women to tell tales of sadistic wenches and vicious temptresses (from a ’80s Dungeons & Dragons point of view) across his discography. Certainly, Midnight’s parlay of the fine female form has its roots somewhere, like good old rock ‘n’ roll:
Says Walters on No Clean Singing: “Maybe it comes back to, like I said, most of the stuff I listen to. You know, listen to the Rolling Stones, take ten of those songs, how many of those songs have to do with women on one of their records? Probably nine out of the ten songs, and then the tenth one being about drugs. KISS, how many songs do they have about women? Probably nine out of ten songs, and then the next one being about rocking. It’s an interest. It’s part of life, but I haven’t really lived in many castles recently, or I’m not slaying dragons as much as I used to, so I can’t really write about that stuff.”
With that, headbangers large and small, close and far, longhair and short are you ready for Midnight’s heavy rockin’, high rollin’ Sweet Death and Ecstasy? Turn on the blacklight, unfurl that Heather Thomas felt poster, and break out the white hightops. Hell is here and it wants to party like it’s 1983!
** Midnight’s new album, Sweet Death and Ecstasy, is out December 15th on Hells Headbangers. The heavy metal banger is out on CD, Cassette, and LP (HERE). Order now or die tryin’!
** Check out our interview with Midnight from 2014. HERE. It’s a mind-scrambler!
