Welcome to Metal Lair’s Seven Deadly Songs weekly feature where we curate music from the past and the present for your listening pleasure.
Written By Kevin McSweeney
The 25th of January is a significant date in the Scottish calendar, as the Celtic nation’s people and those with Caledonian heritage all over the world celebrate Burns Night, in honour of the great poet and songwriter, Robert Burns. Festivities usually involve feasting upon the national dish of haggis, with mashed potatoes and turnips, washed down with generous servings of whisky to help you forget what the “great chieftain of the pudding race” actually contains. We’ve opted for sonic sustenance here at Metal Lair (though a glass or two of the water of life can’t be ruled out entirely), using this week’s Seven Deadly Songs to feast upon the bill o’ fare from those who have continued the bard’s legacy of words and music via the medium of metal. Nine Inch Nails will please a lady, but for this list, only Scottish artists are eligible.
The Almighty – Addiction
The Almighty were one of the biggest names in British metal in the early-to-mid 1990s. Your dewy-eyed old scribe is elderly enough to have witnessed their huge tour of the UK and Ireland with The Wildhearts and Kerbdog in 1993, and not yet senile enough to have forgotten it. Addiction is the opening track and was the first single from their third album, 1993’s Powertrippin’, an album that took a notably grungier direction than their previous offerings. The verse boasts a swaggering brute of a bluesy riff, which bears comparison with other staples of the era, such as Soundgarden’s Outshinedand Metallica’s The Memory Remains. Irish frontman Ricky Warwick’s sandpaper-throated snarl and the deft fretwork of ex-Alice Cooper guitarist Pete Friesin are as compelling as ever, 32 years after its release. Good Lord, I’m old!
Alestorm – Buckfast Powersmash
No list of Scottish bands would be complete without Perth’s pioneers of pirate metal, the mighty Alestorm. They are the only band on the list besides the aforementioned Almighty that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live, and they are tremendous fun! I’ve gone for an alcohol-themed track – Lord knows I was spoiled for choice for such songs in their back catalogue – from their third studio album, Back Through Time. Musically, it swings wildly from fast-paced thrash to sea shanty to sublime silliness, and even incorporates the theme tune of the iconic British children’s TV show Chucklevisiontowards the end. Only Alestorm could possibly get away with that. Lyrically, it imagines the merry band of buccaneers boarding their trusty vessel and sailing to South Devon, not far from the dwelling place of yours truly, in a bloody quest for Buckfast Tonic Wine: a potent beverage – very much an acquired taste – brewed by Benedictine monks in Buckfast Abbey. This particular libation has somehow achieved cult status among the bon vivants of bonny Scotland. A wee dram might be the conventional choice of tipple with which to wash down your neeps and tatties, but whatever floats your pirate ship.
Saor – Origins
Time for some black metal now, and why not? Scotland is roughly as near to Norway as it is to London, after all, though it’s a slightly soggier walk. Saor – a Gaelic word meaning “free” – is a band that wears its Celtic heritage as proudly as a clan’s tartan. Origins, from the album of the same name, released via Season of Mist in 2023, is an example of them at their finest, blending, as their website states: “…the harsh grandeur of black metal with the tender melodies of Scottish folklore.” Indeed, the heavy parts are as subtle as a shinty ball to the sporran. Otherwise, it’s an atmospheric affair, evoking images of burly Highland men strutting imperiously through the glen, with claymores held aloft and kilts flapping precariously in the prevailing north-westerly. Be sure to check them out if that mental image hasn’t put you off.
Bleed From Within – The End of All We Know
The inclusion of this metalcore band from Glasgow was perhaps inevitable. They are one of the best known current Scottish metal bands, along with Alestorm. I have gone with this choice cut from their fifth studio album, Fracture, which was included amongst Metal Hammer’s best albums of 2020. The album was of particular interest to me, as it was recorded at Middle Farm studios in South Devon. (It’s nice to know that a Scottish band can be lured down here for reasons other than a murderous rampage to seize large quantities of Buckfast Tonic Wine, Alestorm!) The song itself is a furious mid-paced number, highly conducive to headbanging, complete with an anthemic roar-along chorus in the best traditions of their chosen subgenre.
Mendeed – The Dead Live by Love
Here we have more Scottish metalcore, this time from Dunbarton. The band is sadly long gone, having been operational between 2000 and 2007. They released two studio albums: 2005’s This War will Last Forever, and 2007’s The Dead Live by Love. The title track of the latter brings to mind the elegiac Rose of Sharyn by Killswitch Engage, in that it is a heartbreaking exclamation of grief, made all the more powerful by the intensity of the riffing and the mournfulness of the melodies. At their best, this band produced songs that would have graced any Killswitch Engage album, and that is high praise indeed.
Man Must Die – Sectarian
Sadly, this technical death metal band from Glasgow disbanded last year, just a year after releasing their first album – and their fifth overall – in a decade. This track is from their 2013 release, Peace was Never an Option, which is a furious offering, full to the brim of indignant invective. Sectarian is an angry rejection of the religious and cultural intolerance that has blighted communities within Scotland and further afield for far too long, in a very similar vein to Alternative Ulster by legendary punk band Stiff Little Fingers. I’d usually be inclined to avoid politics, in order to avoid alienating people, but this furious diatribe is very much in keeping with the spirit of Robert Burns, who often lamented that which divides us in his writing, as well as in the spirit of Jake Burns of the aforementioned punk legends.
Gun – Better Days
We can have a legitimate debate as to whether or not Gun are metal enough to make the cut here, but what cannot be disputed is that, with this hard rock anthem from the late 1980s, the Glasgow band produced an absolute banger – pun very much intended. Besides, gunmetal is my favourite shade of grey, so I’m including them, and that’s that. Their inclusion is primarily because Better Days is the first rock song of any kind that I heard by a band that I knew to be Scottish, unless you count The Proclaimers, and I’m going to have to stretch logic about 500 miles, and then 500 more, to be able to justify adding them to the list. It’s a stirring number that acknowledges terrible things happening in the world, but urges us to remain steadfast in anticipation of happier times ahead. The stereotype about Scots being dour is thoroughly negated by the optimistic outlook of this song. Their cover of Cameo’s Word Up is also worth checking out, if only for the comic value of hearing a pale Scottish guy berating “Sucker DJs who think you’re fly.”
So there you have it; seven songs by seven fine Scottish bands that might make a change from the usual Burns Night soundtrack of bagpipes and addresses to the haggis. Enjoy the celebrations if you’re partaking of them, and if not, then just keep rocking.
