NIGHTMARE CITY, Nightmare Tape (2014, Electric Assault)
The skull:
Now this here is a stunningly awesome hand-drawn Big Dumb Skull. The best way to look at it is to imagine that the giant flaming skull is neither attacking the city nor being attacked, but rather is just sitting there. Like, one night people looked out the windows of their high rise condominiums and instead of the sunset saw an enormous skull with smoke and fire pouring out of its eyes. What could be more terrifying than that? I mean, aside from the skull smiling.
The music:
Imagine if Sodom had recorded their debut EP with the relative instrumental prowess of Venom (a massive upgrade, if you can imagine it). That’s what Nightmare City sounds like, more or less. I guess that Nightmare City are a lot more concerned with the powers of Rock than the powers of Satan, and they lean a bit more punk than metal sometimes, but in those cases, just imagine a missing link between The Damned’s Machine Gun Etiquette and Tank’s Filth Hounds of Hades. These guys capture the raw early 80s more or less perfectly, and they do it while avoiding the winking tone that scuttles a lot of these sorts of retro acts. I like a lot of the bands that inspire Nightmare City and their ilk (think: Superchrist, Asomvel) but I’m not totally sold on the need for anything new in this style, but if you’re on board with the scene, you need to check these guys out.
— Friar Johnsen
