Satan – Out Of The Fire 1981-1985, 4CD Box Set
Satan – Out Of The Fire 1981-1985, 4CD Box Set
HNE Recordings
Release date: 23/10/26
Review by Jon Deaux
7/10
Three CDs of filthy, great NWOBHM fuelled by speed and making the rest of this genre apologize for its existence, and one CD where the Devil is asking for airtime on the radio.
Satan invented half the sounds that your beloved metal bands made millions from, and now you have proof in this box set. Skip the last CD if you can’t get over being outraged; if not, then just watch the band politely expire.
Satan has compiled a four-CD boxset, and I’d just like to point out straight away that if the devil himself were to release a boxset, it would be infinitely classier and the liner notes would just be a list of all the people that owe him favors. These guys are from Newcastle, and the most evil thing they’ve ever done is charge you money for a pint of Newcastle Brown in a stinking hole of a place. Disc one includes Court In The Act 1983. Don’t you believe me? This CD is utterly amazing. Speed metal, power metal, even prototypical thrash, all before anyone decided what to call it and agreed upon what it should be called. Trial By Fire is here, the song that Blind Guardian lifted, the song with a title similar to Blades of Steel, and all Helloween did was sit in a room in Germany with a guitar going “Yep, that’s what I’m stealing next.” And that, my friends, is why Satan is tragic. They thought it first, they executed it better, and others made all the money off it. Musically, that’s inventing a light bulb and having some guy in a suit sell it back to you.
Disc two consists of demos and rarities, and unless you’re an ultimate fan, you just paid money for listening to a band that sounds as if they play inside a can of beans. There’s 1981 Guardian demo, 1982 Into the Fire demo, and some live recordings from Earthquake Festival. The drums sound as if someone is dropping their cutlery down the staircase. However, it didn’t bother me because there’s some beauty when you hear young guys figuring out how to scare you when they have neither money nor clue how to make music. It’s completely opposite to Instagram.
The third disc has a live recording of the band from Eindhoven in 1983, where we can hear Blitzkrieg, one of the songs, later recorded by Metallica. This means that one of the greatest heavy metal bands in the world started their career based on the song by this little Newcastle outfit, yet I don’t see anyone sending gifts to Satan himself. It’s tight, dirty and very sweaty with almost no dull seconds.
Then we come to disc four. 1985’s Out Of Reach. And that was where the group feared their name, understandably, since “Satan” does not make for a particularly good way to get a loan, so they became “Blind Fury.” “Blind Fury?” This isn’t a band – it’s a made-for-video action movie where the retiring detective gets one last case and finds himself facing off against some random guy who looks a bit like Dolph Lundgren from Greggs. And that’s how the record is: shiny and polished and with loads of big melodies and harmonies. Raw ferocity and menace for three albums, and now the Prince of Darkness has taken a middle-management job and talks of “synergy.” Do It Loud and Out Of Reach were not terrible albums; I wish I could say it differently. The good thing is that they’re really interesting records showing us a band freaking out in front of the microphone in order to make it onto the radio. And still no airplay.
This release has class: it’s got the rare memorabilia and the liner notes written by John Tucker, the NWOBHM expert himself, based on his new interviews with the band, because someone actually cared about this in 2026.
If you dig Venom, if you’re into Metallica’s early works, buy this now. If all you think of as heavy metal is the Black Album, well, this is going to be like getting trapped in a shed with a pissed-off wasp, but you deserve it.
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