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Cleveland, Ohio's Midnight has been quite productive over the past few years, as you would expect from any self-respecting black metal band. Sweet Death and Ecstasy is the band's third full-length (among a dizzying array of splits, EPs and singles) and finds them hitting their stride. The album opens with one of the greatest black/thrash songs written to date, the monumental "Crushed by Demons." Normally, Midnight plays at 100 miles an hour (and most of Sweet Death and Ecstasy duly hits top speed) but here the tempo is slowed down and that allows a lot more atmosphere to creep in. This song, and the closer "Before My Time in Hell," though to a lesser degree, are fierce, menacing hymns like old Bathory. One listen and you'll be shouting "Crushed...by...DEMONS!" As I indicated before, the rest of the album has a lot of punky thrash reminiscent of Venom and Motörhead, which is fine, but it's the first and last tracks that are reason enough to grab a copy.

Note: reviewed here is the cassette/vinyl configuration containing 8 tracks. The CD version contains a second disc with an additional 40 minutes of music.