Midnight: Hellish Expectations (2024, Metal Blade Records)

I don’t remember being as hooked on an album in recent years as I have been on Midnight‘s previous album, Let There Be Witchery. Although many supposedly connoisseurs of music have classified their compositions as simple and repetitive, there is something that Midnight knows how to do wonderfully and that is to deliver authentic musical gems without giving a shit about what others may think. This is something that I have always valued positively about his alma mater, Athenar, a metal crusader who goes on his own and ignores all the shit that is usually generated on social networks in recent years.

Midnight is not a band for everyone, that is something that must be taken into account when removing the blister from a new Midnight album. The project led by Athenar has created a school with its raw and dirty sound, combining the aggressiveness of speed metal and the sound that many would easily identify with Motörhead, but it is not a crude copy of the latter as many freely proclaim out there. The proof of this is the fast and catchy Expect Total Hell that opens the album, a song composed with surgical precision to dissect the listener musically. Fast riffs, sharp guitars and production on par with what any black/speed fan could expect.

The rawness and sloppiness echoes throughout an album like Hellish Expectations that oozes rot and heaviness from all sides. Here we find dirty and unpolished songs like Gash Scrape, Nuclear Savior or Slave Of The Blade, songs that probably will not go down in history or win an award for having been composed in a convoluted way but that will blow your brains out without any of concessions. It could be said that despite its short duration this could be classified as an EP, although that Hellish Expectations is within the average length of Midnight‘s albums, being at the same time the shortest of all of them with a total duration of 25 minutes.

Perhaps the only thing that can be attributed to the album is the duration, but it must be said that for the person writing these lines it is a more than adequate duration. Why stretch the gum to fill the album with songs that may contribute little or nothing and thus make it longer? We have ten songs of pure speed and black with a punk aftertaste that is processed wonderfully and that leaves a very sweet aftertaste once the time comes to uncork the bottle with the now classic F.O.A.L. which would serve in turn as an appetizer for this grandiloquent and rusty shot of dark metal through the vein. For those looking for something heavier and slower you can use Mercyless Slaughtor, but the rest of the album you will not find time to take a breath and rest your neck.

Hellish Expectations does not reveal anything new for those who approach Midnight‘s music and at the same time it establishes itself as a new achievement in Athenar‘s career who already has an excuse to go on tour and crush our skulls with his infernal metal that takes no prisoners. If you want to have a good time without having to look for nuances to appreciate, Hellish Expectations is your album, a kick in the balls from which you will have a hard time recovering once the album ends.

You can listen to Fuck Off And Die by Darkthrone right after Midnight‘s F.O.A.L. if you like, it is something that I have done on several occasions and I highly recommend it beyond the connection between both songs titles that have little or nothing to do with each other but that improve the experience even more. I’m a freak, I admit it. In Athenar’s words, F.O.A.L. is “an ode to the people who peacefully want to die to escape the realities of life, while they should really live and suffer“. So, FUCK OFF AND LIVE!

Tracklist:

1. Expect Total Hell
2. Gash Scrape
3. Masked and Deadly
4. Slave of the Blade
5. Dungeon Lust
6. Nuclear Savior
7. Deliver Us to Devil
8. Mercyless Slaughtor
9. Doom Death Desire
10. F.O.A.L.

Midnight Tour Dates 2024:

MIDNIGHT Live Tour Dates:
February 24 – Poor Kids Mansion (Los Angeles (CA)
February 28 – The Brightside, Brisbane (AU)
February 29 – The Basement, Canberra (AU)
March 1 – Marrickville Bowlo, Sydney (AU)
March 2 – Flippin The Bird at Singing Bird Studios, Frankston (AU)
March 3 – Max Watts, Melbourne (AU)
March 16 – Hotel Vegas, Austin (TX)
March 21 – Hell’s Heroes, Houston (TX)

European Tour 2024 with Cyclone and High Command:
April 4 – Turock, Essen (DE)
April 5 – Kulturpalast, Hamburg (DE)
April 6 – Pumpehuset, Copenhagen (DK)
April 7 – Roxy, Flensburg (DE)
April 8 – 2Progi, Poznań (PL)
April 9 – Kamienna12, Kraków (PL)
April 11 – Goldgrube, Kassel (DE)
April 12 – Bastard Club, Osnabrück (DE)
April 13 – Welcome To Hell, Eindhoven (NL)
April 14 – De Kreun, Kortrijk (BE)
April 16 – Rebellion, Manchester (UK)
April 17 – Anarchy Brew Co, Newcastle (UK)
April 18 – New Cross Inn, London (UK)
April 19 – Petit Bain, Paris (FR)
April 20 – No Playback Festival, Remchingen (DE)
April 21 – Schlachthaus, Dornbirn (AT)
April 23 – Gaswerk, Winterthur (CH)
April 24 – Backstage, Munich (DE)
April 25 – Viper Room, Vienna (AT)
April 26 – Underdogs, Prague (CZ)
April 27 – Lido, Berlin (DE)
April 28 – Chemiefabrik, Dresden (DE)
April 30 – Temple, Athens (GR) *MIDNIGHT only
May 1 – Tetapth 1 Maïoy, Thesseloniki (GR) *MIDNIGHT only
May 22 – Maryland Deathfest Pre-Fest, Baltimore (MD) *MIDNIGHT only