MIDNIGHT Releases “Hellish Expectations”
Photo By Hannah Verbeuren
Midnight, the leading purveyor of “filth metal,” is back with another sleazy, hard-rocking banger of an album. Hellish Expectations is Midnight’s sixth full-length album, and it is out right now.
Cleavland-based musician Athenar is the evil genius behind Midnight. As the band’s sole guitarist, bassist, drummer, vocalist, and songwriter, Athenar is an incredible force of creativity. Spending years in the metal and punk underground releasing numerous demos, EPs, and splits, Athenar developed a reputation for creating the most kick-ass music that reminds listeners of classic metal like Venom and Motorhead. Athenar takes the elements of old-school thrash, punk rock, black metal, and speed metal and interprets them for modern headbangers. The result is simultaneously familiar and refreshingly new.
Hellish Expectations continues Athenar’s quest to create metallic masterpieces. The album is loud, nasty, and dirty. Just the way Midnight fans like it.
“It’s a knuckle-dragger with a fat cut off,” said Athenar. “Probably the most concise and straight-to-the-point Midnight album to date, and all written in a weekend. The album was written on pure reaction upon leaving the studio after listening to raw tracks from the previous album Let There Be Witchery. The final mix of that album was good, but at the time of laying it down in the studio, I didn’t like what I was hearing and demanded a new leviathan of an album to be written that weekend.”
Hellish Expectations Track Listing:
01. Expect Total Hell
02. Gash Scrape
03. Masked and Deadly
04. Slave of the Blade
05. Dungeon Lust
06. Nuclear Savior
07. Deliver Us to Devil
08. Mercyless Slaughtor
09. Doom Death Desire
10. F.O.A.L.
The first single off Hellish Expectations is “F.O.A.L.” The acronym spelled out is “Fuck Off And Live.” The track has an accompanying music video directed by David Brodsky of music visuals studio My Good Eye.
“Fuck Off And Live” is an ode to the people who peacefully want to die to escape the realities of life, while they should really live and suffer,” explained Athenar.
Hellish Expectations is released via Metal Blade Record on CD and digital formats. Special vinyl editions of Hellish Expectations are available in the following color variants: Sangria and
Metallic Marble for the US market and 180g Black, Crimson Red w/ Black Smoke, and Orange/Red Splatter in the European Union.
Midnight will play a couple of Texas dates later this month before embarking on a 22-date tour of Europe. By the end of May, Midnight returns to the United States for a series of shows culminating in an appearance at the Maryland Deathfest in Baltimore.
