Today, Someoddpilot Records revives the solitary eponymous album from 1980 Chicago-area thrash metal outfit ARIAH, remastered and pressed on vinyl, and streaming on all digital services for the first time.
The year is 1989. In a sleepy suburb of Chicago, four high school students united under the banner of ARIAH have just spent their paper route money on two days of studio time at Shadow Productions in Wheeling, Illinois, a little-known facility helmed by two new wave guys to record their first album. The eight original tracks the band would lay to tape are pure ‘80s thrash metal, inspired by the glory days of the genre’s titans and performed by kids soaking it up, unafraid to write complex and lengthy songs, with blindingly fast riffs and solos to rival the technique and speeds of their heroes Kirk Hammet and Kerry King.
A thirteen-year-old with a mustache, Chris Southerland, could manage his lead guitar duties without blinking. Jim Urbanski, on bass, and often acid, modeled himself on Cliff, fingerpicking and playing barefoot. Ray Dybzinski (Sounding Spirals, Still Machine, The Timeout Drawer, Facefail), the king of his high school’s lit mag, wrote and sang the band’s lyrics inspired by thrash but infused with the stream of consciousness of Skinny Puppy’s Nivek Ogre. Drummer Chris Eichenseer (Beak, The Timeout Drawer, Facefail) would handle all design elements including the band’s flyers, photography, and Kinko’s Xerox album cover design, and would later start the Someoddpilot design studio.
ARIAH emerged from the studio with a forty-minute demo which they replicated on cassette, disseminating them to friends at school and throughout the local metal scene. As with many young bands, the Ariah demo would be the band’s only recording, and the nexus of the group’s existence.
Now, thirty-five years after putting the record to tape, the members of ARIAH have resurrected these eight ripping anthems from obscurity, and secured Collin Jordan at Chicago’s infamous Boiler Room (Ministry, Eyehategod, Spirit Adrift) to remaster the album.
Recently relaunched early-2000s label Someoddpilot Records now breathes new life into Ariah with a remastered LP pressing on limited edition White Opaque Vinyl and across the digital realm.
Stream ARIAH’s eponymous LP and acquire the limited vinyl at Bandcamp RIGHT HERE and stream the record everywhere including Spotify HERE.
A video for one of the tracks created from vintage footage of the band is under construction and will drop shortly.
Ariah Track Listing:
1. Dawn Never Rises
2. Straining Of Glass
3. Disintegration
4. The Chosen Second
5. Level Eight
6. Commemoration
7. Wake Of Reality (vinyl exclusive)
8. I Am The Cause
https://ariah89.bandcamp.com
https://someoddpilotrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/someoddpilotrecords