Video Premiere: Satanic Planet Drops “Satanic Planet” onto a Satanic Planet

The last year-plus of isolation, lockdowns and no live music or tours may have been a kick in the crotch for many of our mental health and social lives. On the other hand, it’s personally allowed me to literally do nothing but work almost every day since April 2020 and thusly, have no credit card debt since I-can’t-even-remember-the-last-time-when. It’s also allowed those musicians with normally packed touring schedules to hit the studio and contribute to projects they otherwise might never have had time for.

One of those folks is a guy you may have heard us mention once or twice named Dave Lombardo. The other is Justin Pearson who, pandemic or not, always seems to manage to attach his name and playing to a variety of projects in his apparent never-ending battle against sleep and free time. Mr. Lombardo, on the other hand, found himself with nowhere to go once the multitudes of bands he was juggling (including Mr. Bungle, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Cross, Misfits and whatever else I’m forgetting) had all their live plans scuttled. This allowed the former drummer from a band called you may have heard of called Slayer, the time to consider the umpteen number of session spot requests people have been probably throwing at him since he stopped haunting that particular chapel for good in 2013.

One project Lombardo jumped whole hog into was Satanic Planet. Lombardo, Pearson, hip-hop producer Luke Henshaw and frontman and internationally recognised Satanist, Lucien Greaves (co-founder and spokesperson of the Satanic Temple) have banded together in the creation of the project’s self-titled debut album of eerie, tribal, gothic, post-punk, ceremonial doomy industrial scoundscapes that also employs the talents of guests like Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan, Nomi Abadi, Silent’s Jung Sing, Shiva Honey, Eric Livingston (a.k.a. First Church of the Void), and Hexa’s Carrie Feller.

Today, we’re presenting the video for the album’s title track, a fast-paced chanter with visuals that summon the power of old-school Saturday morning cartoons and, as Greaves describes:

“The Satanic Planet theme is an entire Satanic Panic condensed into under two minutes of blistering, rapid-fire, paranoid meltdown, complete with backward masking. Knowing that Satanic Planet, the band, will be a controversial act that will inspire pearl-clutching bible-thumpers to comb our material looking for evidence to confirm their worst fears, we decided to save them time by compiling a lyrical laundry list of anti-Satanist delusions that can be appropriately taken as mockery, or moronically as advocacy. Satanic Planet has something for everybody!”

Also, to quote the band’s bio: “These dark musical soundscapes serve as a vessel to share the important messages that The Satanic Temple stands for, including religious freedom, highlighting the hypocrisy in dominant organized religions, and the horrific consequences of pseudoscience and malpractice still being utilized today in America.”

Satanic Planet, the album, was recorded and produced by Luke Henshaw and Dave Lombardo. Mixed and mastered by Brent Asbury. Cover art by Stomp the Holy Bones. Layout by The Black Moon Design. It will be released by Three One G Records digitally, as well as on CD and vinyl, with four limited edition vinyl variants on May 28. Preorder here.