Steel, Rust and Disgust

Covers albums are nothing new, especially in the metal world. Everyone from Metallica and Napalm Death to the Melvins and Sepultura have made them. But Midnight mastermind Athenar put a geographical twist on Steel, Rust and Disgust: All the covers here were originally performed by bands from his native Ohio. In fact, most of them are from his hometown of Cleveland, with just a couple of stragglers from nearby Akron. Alongside two ripping new Midnight originals (“Cleveland Metal” and the title track), Athenar takes on tunes by such colourful characters as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and David Allan Coe, plus Cleveland punk staples (Dead Boys, Rocket from the Tombs) and ’80s obscurities from metal bands who were Athenar’s friends and neighbours back in the day (Synastryche, False Hope). “I wanted to make it very specific to this region,” he tells Apple Music. “Ohio doesn't really get its due sometimes, as far as how much inspiring music has come from here. There were a lot of musical trailblazers from Cleveland, and that gets overlooked sometimes. Like the Dead Boys song, there ‘Ain’t Nothing to Do’ here. But there’s always time to do something wacky like this.” “Cleveland Metal” “I wrote this back in 2018. We were supposed to tour China in 2020, and we were going to put out a Chinese tour single. I recorded ‘Cleveland Metal’ for that, and I changed our song ‘Berlin Is Burning’ to ‘Beijing Is Burning’ so the single would be kind of a Cleveland/China combo platter. But obviously COVID happened, so I ended up using it for this. I know it’s teetering on total cheeseball-ness, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s only cheesy if you don’t mean it.” “Iron Beast” “Kratos put out this EP in the ’80s, a four-song 12-inch that’s under nine minutes. And they’re all just fucking burners. They’re really over the top and just sloppy as fuck. The album cover is so amateurish, it’s hilarious. It’s totally unpolished teenage metal. And they’re from the outskirts of Cleveland, so they’re