专辑简介

by Eduardo Rivadavia

Unable to afford the luxury of a professional studio (they couldn't even convince terrified promoters in Brazil's biggest metropolis, São Paulo, to book them), Santos' enterprising Vulcano took the initiative of planning and recording one of their own shows, in the town of Americana, for release as their first official album: 1985's Vulcano: Live!. Naturally, the setup was as primitive and improvised as could be expected in a third-world country that was only just emerging from a military dictatorship; unsigned musicians had little technology at their disposal and Live!, not surprisingly, wound up sounding like crap because of it. Yet it also crackled with the sort of desperate intensity that no studio environment could ever hope to manufacture and, in retrospect, offers a one-of-a-kind glimpse of Brazil's poorly documented heavy metal movement, just as it was about to take off. Vulcano were one of the bands standing front and center on the launching pad, and their unapologetically vulgar blend of black and thrash metal (forging the velocity of Motörhead and Slayer with the occult theatrics of Venom) produced rip-roaring numbers such as "Witches' Sabbath," "Riding in Hell," and the seminal "Total Destruction" (complete with dramatic spoken introduction). Meanwhile, additional moshers like "Prisoners from Beyond," "Satan's Warriors," and the demo favorite "Devil on My Roof" shot off just as many fireworks while showing greater dynamic range. No such hope for the seemingly interminable plod of "Fallen Angel" (the only song penned by guitarist Johhny Hansen and capped by a drum solo, to boot), and the classic "Satanic Legions" was unfortunately marred by a crumbling drum kit, which necessitated a little overdubbing in the studio later on. Overall, though, the band's playing is surprisingly solid, and the lyrics (screamed, partly in Portuguese and partly in English, by Lemmy, Cronos, and Cookie Monster disciple Angel) may not always make any sense, but we are talking heavy metal here -- music speaks louder than words. [Because bassist Zhema lost the original master tapes to a conniving foreign label, Cogumelo Records' CD reissue of Vulcano: Live! was transferred directly from vinyl! So don't expect any improvement upon the original article's already substandard audio fidelity, but there are three new tracks recorded especially for the occasion in 1998, and featuring temporary stand-in vocalist Luiz Carlos on his only performance with Vulcano.]