The other evening I was kicking off my slippers and possibly turning down the heater, feeling quite middle aged. I remember looking at the cat and thinking “You little brat!”, it was around 11:30pm. Somewhere in the mist of all that and the darkness of my living room I heard a sort of familiar insect tinkling coming from my TV. I instantly knew the song which is now a jingle on a Carl’s Junior burger commercial. I turned to my girlfriend and said “That’s Death Angel” with sarcasm and a slight hint of pride. Not knowing anything about Metal Music, she blew it off as one of my usual super left field comments.
Death Angel is a Sonoma County Metal band from the 1980’s who surfaced near the crescendo of the 80’s Bay Area Thrash Music Scene. Their debut album did a pretty good job of representing thrash metal as it was defined in the day, not like the mud puddles that are continually fabricated from items bought at Walmart these days. For me, to hear it brought back a momentary nostalgic state of high school days, but really I felt happy that those guys got a little more dough out of their property. I hope is isn’t going to like some scavenger manager or something.
The one time I do actually recall seeing them live was a The River Theater in Guerneville in the summer of ’86.
It was Skitzo with Lantz Ozanix, Death Angel and headliner Bay Area legends Possessed.
Here is the tune: The Ultra-Violence