They Say My Songs Are Much Too Slow

Every time I'm on the street
People laugh and point at me
They talk about my length of hair
And the out of date clothes I wear

How heavy can an album with such a lovely bright cover be? the band were named after the violent death throes of a tortured and beheaded third century Sicilian, that’s how heavy*. Saint Vitus.

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I see colours everywhere
I have things living in my hair

Saint Vitus were 8 years into their career when they released Born Too Late on hardcore punk label SST. They had released two really good LPs with original singer Scott Reagers but the magic crystallized when they recruited Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich on vocals.

Wino, a long-haired Maryland redneck with a switchblade in his pocket and a heart of gold, stumbled onto the primitive DC hardcore scene. Of course Wino stood out like a sore thumb at shows. Few would fuck with his unsettling presence.

Steven Blush American Hardcore**

Like Wino’s previous band The Obsessed, Saint Vitus got gigs opening for hardcore acts, playing at audiences who hated them for tribal reasons, but who occasionally got won over by their attitude, righteousness and toughness. Nobody else on the Californian metal scene wanted anything to do with their nascent doom metal and look in those flashy skintight times. They befriended the Black Flag chaps^ and got to release Born Too Late on Greg Ginn’s label.

Heavy.

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I am a big fan of a title track being the LP opener^^ and ‘Born Too Late’ is a wonderfully inevitable track. After the initial muddy guitar flurry Saint Vitus basically invent the band Sleep before lumbering into view like something eldritch and swamp-rotten. Wino’s tone is perfect giving his alienation real menace and felling. Dave Chandler’s guitar solo is excellent, an extended nails down a blackboard exercise right at the end of the song; no distractions.

They say I look like the living dead
They say I can't have much in my head
They say my songs are much too slow
But they don't know the things I know

Drummer Armando Acosta plays more beats in the intro of ‘Clear Windowpane’ than the whole of the first cut. It’s either about insanity or getting fucked up so you don’t have to deal with reality, much less master it. It swaggers with ill intent. That this is followed by a doom-laden lament about drinking far too much, I put down to a death rictus humour, it is another great heartfelt cut with even more great guitaring.

The ‘H.A.A.G’ shuffle is great, all really lyrical guitar riffing and rhythmic spiralling as far as the ear can see. It’s the closest thing to Sabbath on Born Too Late which prompts a note on context: forget Sabbath’s current ubiquity, almost nobody was lauding them back in ’86, or if they were it was as a historical curio – everyone was playing faster not slower^*, Saint Vitus rarely raise the tempo above a reluctant heartbeat.

I have to say the tenor and lyrics of ‘The Lost Feeling’ are a spot-on take on depression, again Chandler hits us upside the head with some excellent guitaring. The most Sabbath-y cut on Born Too Late is ‘War Starter’ where they really deliver lyrics that could be straight out of the Brummies’ sternest hymnal, Master Of Reality.

Then just as the needle click forces you to emerge from your doom reverie Born Too Late is over and done, a well-judged 34:36.

Make no mistake this is a really vital relic for all of us with a doom bent in our spirits. It sounds as strong and as vital today as it did when it was cut, maybe more so given all the bands who later grooved off Born Too Late and used it as their own urtext/launch pad. Yes, Saint Vitus worshipped Sabbath, but were no mere copyists, just steeped in their creed.

The production work on Born Too Late by Joe Carducci and the band is absolutely on point, shadowy without being muddy, sharp when necessary and particularly good on the vocals. Not bad for an album made in 3 days straight at the studio for cash reasons.

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All that and quite the iconic LP cover too, which was apparently an SST screw up as the band wanted the window to take up most of the front cover. I think it is absolutely perfect as is and apt for the song ‘Clear Windowpane’.

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Falling in a bottomless pit
Is there no end to this moronic wit?

Something many readers of 1537 have asked before and yes, there might be in about 224 reviews time.

1313 Down.

*hence ‘St Vitus dance’. Nice chaps, those historical dudes. Incidentally St Vitus protects against lightning strikes, animal attacks and oversleeping; as someone who has a pathological fear of being chased by lightning-wielding goats because I slept in too late to catch my train, I have adopted him as my patron saint today. I urge you to as well.

**amazing book, buy it immediately. Buy two copies.

^guitarist Dave Chandler crops up a few times in Henry Rollins Get In The Van memoir.

^^think Back In Black, Black Sabbath*^ and possibly even some albums that don’t feature the word ‘black’.

*^interestingly Saint Vitus completed the rare ‘Devils toasting fork’ by having a self-titled debut LP and opening track. That’s some heavy shit right there hombre.

^*apart from Trouble and Pentagram.