The Walking Dead / Hallow's Victim

This two-for-one release combines all of Saint Vitus’ releases from 1985—the Walking Dead EP and the full-length Hallow’s Victim. These were the last of the early Vitus albums with original singer Scott Reagers. The band’s second effort for SST is an eerier affair than its eponymous debut. Befitting its macabre themes, the album’s production shows an unnerving separation between Dave Chandler's groaning guitar and the rhythm section's dry churning. While songs like “The Sadist” and “White Stallions” are much faster than anything from the first album (and at times even resemble Iron Maiden's speed metal), Vitus’ bread and butter was its slow songs, which dismantle the idea of standardized time and coax the listener into a state of disjointed reality. The album’s magnum opus is “The Walking Dead,” a showcase for the band’s guitarist and singer. As Chandler creates a strangely hypnotic toxic mist with his guitar, Reagers conjures a zombie apocalypse with his bluesy bellow: “Nightmares you once feared/Aren’t nightmares anymore.”