Sacred Alien may possibly not be a name you remember back from the good old New Wave of British Heavy Metal days in the early 1980s.
They were not around on the scene for long and didn’t manage to have much to show for their efforts bar a single or two and some demos.
A shame as they did have something different to offer bringing in spacey/proggy elements to their work. That was demonstrated a few years ago when Skol records put out a CD of Sacred Alien’s demos from back in the day.
And that appeared to be it for the band. Never to be heard from again……………..or not quite….
A few days ago I saw their name pop up somewhere and with curiosity piqued, delved in to see what it was all about. Hurrah! A live album – Transmission Intercept.
I figured it’d be a “lost” performance from forty years ago somehow rediscovered. Wrong. A new live album from a reformed Sacred Alien with the line-up featuring three of the original members. Another NWOBHM-era band back out of the blue.
On nipping straight over the their BandCamp page not only did I see the live album, but also a new studio album – The Universe Doesn’t Care About You – which they released in 2021. Did not know about that.
Anyhoo – as my format of choice remains a physical product and noticing that the limited number of CDs had sold out for the studio album I skipped the digital version and instead was fortunate enough to bag one of the few CDs for Transmission Intercept.
Top stuff it is too capturing the band’s energetic performance at the Sonic Rock Solstice last year (2023).
They storm through a set mixing in the old and the new all a pleasure to listen to. Sure, it’s heavy (this is a NWOBHM-era band remember coming back after four decades….) though retains that spacey/cosmic edge amongst the chunky riffs and there are some nice trippy solos chucked in along the way.
Spiritual Planet brings it back from the 1980s in fine style. Followed by a couple from the recent comeback studio album – a chunky, trippy and catchy Beautiful Delusion then Oumuamua which is all about that big long thing which mooched through near space recently with the theory being it “could” have been some sort of alien spaceship.
Here’s Beautiful Delusion:
Portrait of a Saddened Mind another good ‘un from the ‘80s then Death Note heavies things up nicely with the lyrics around what we’ll call an “imaginative” concept and I think perhaps slightly tongue in cheek. If you listen to the words you’ll want the power they portray.
Legends transport us back forty years showing again how perhaps the band’s different style was perhaps too different for the time. And the extended version Energy is a thunderous set closer. Oh – almost forgot the spirit cover of Bowie’s Moonage Daydream.
Excellent that Sacred Alien have reformed and are productive.
Digital versions of Legends, The Universe Doesn’t Care About You and Transmission Intercept all available from their BandCamp page though CDs are scarce. As I post this, only Transmission Intercept shows CD availability and that’s limited to 100 copies.
Sacred Alien BandCamp:
https://sacredalien.bandcamp.com