SATAN: 'Life Sentence' Cover Artwork Unveiled

Legendary NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) band SATAN will release its new album, "Life Sentence", on April 29 in Europe and in May in the U.S. via Listenable Records. The cover artwork for the CD was drawn by Eliran Kantor (TESTAMENT, HATEBREED, SODOM) and depicts a similar graphic concept as that of the band's debut album, "Court In The Act", originally issued 30 years ago .

"Life Sentence" was mixed by Dario Mollo, who is part of TONY MARTIN'S HEADLESS CROSS touring project and has worked with numerous artists as a producer and engineer, including SKYCLAD, ANATHEMA, CRADLE OF FILTH, LACUNA COIL, Tony Martin and Glenn Hughes. The CD was recorded September-November 2012 at First Avenue Studios in Newcastle, England and was mixed and mastered by Mollo at Damage Inc. Studio in Italy.

"We're really happy to have Dario on board to mix the album," SATAN said in a statement. "We've already had a few tracks back and they sound amazing. We wanted to capture the energy the band produce when playing live and we've done just that."

"Life Sentence" track listing:

01. Time To Die
02. Twenty Twenty Five
03. Cenotaph
04. Siege Mentality
05. Incantations
06. Testimony
07. Tears Of Blood
08. Life Sentence
09. Personal Demons
10. Another Universe

The songs deal with the following topics: injustice, impending death, reincarnation, atonement, third-world politics, and biblical retribution.

"Life Sentence" is the culmination of a process that began when the original "Court In The Act" lineup got together for an exclusive "one-off" reunion show at Germany's Keep It True festival in 2011 in what marked their first performance together in 28 years. The band was somewhat overwhelmed with the response — 10 minutes into headliners CRIMSON GLORY's set, the crowd could still be heard chanting, "Satan! Satan!" The SATAN bandmembers immediately booked more shows in Germany, Holland, Belgium and London, and have since kept in close contact with each other, writing songs and making demos.

The recording lineup for "Life Sentence" will be the same as that on "Court In The Act":

Brian Ross (vocals)
Steve Ramsey (guitar)
Russ Tippins (guitar)
Graeme English (bass)
Sean Taylor (drums)

SATAN will perform at the Wings Of Metal festival, set to take place August 30-31 at Katacombes in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This special event will mark SATAN's first appearance in North America.

For more information, visit www.wingsofmetal.com.

SATAN is one of the most important groups that emerged in the early NWOBHM era. Their unique mixture of heavy and power metal spirit with thrash riffage brought a handful of unforgettable tunes and revolutionized heavy music as we know it.

"Court in the Act" was SATAN's debut release and was considered a true milestone at the time of its release (1983). The songs were melodic, but at the same time very aggressive. The band's two guitarists, Russ Tippins and Steve Ramsey, delivered a truly amazing performance; although their styles were completely different, they managed to perfectly complement each other's playing and introduced a handful of timeless riffs and solos.

A digipack reissue of "Court In The Act" was made available in November 2008 featuring three bonus tracks.

Fan-filmed video footage of SATAN's performance at the Keep It True XIV festival, which was held April 29-30, 2011 at Tauberfrankenhalle in Lauda-Königshofen, Germany, can be seen below.