Die Healing

After making one album with Count Raven vocalist Christian Linderson, Saint Vitus reunited with its original singer, Scott Reagers, for 1995’s Die Healing. This would be St. Vitus' last album before an extended hiatus. With this record, Vitus brought its vision full circle. Reagers’ theatrical delivery had toughened up since he'd last appeared with the group in his early 20s. Now the band played with not just calloused maturity but with all the intensity and precision it had honed over its years with replacement vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich. “Dark World” was the best song St. Vitus had written in years. “We're all in the same slimy boat,” bellows Reagers in operatic fashion. “And we're all going to sink!” Emphasizing this point, Dave Chandler unloads an unholy rush from his guitar, as though yanking the hatch on a vessel of atomic waste. Reagers delivers with such conviction that the band’s molten riffs take on cinematic grandeur during “In the Asylum” and “The Sloth,” and Vitus’ most underrated vocalist simultaneously takes on the roles of narrator, star, and stuntman.