Review by Carl on July 13, 2023.

I discovered this one on Discogs, in the store of some guy who was asking an idiotic amount of shipping cost for his stuff. Because he had some items I was interested in, but didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for it, I started scanning his other listed items to spread the cost, and this one's artwork caught my eye. After checking them on YouTube, I was more than pleasantly surprised. I ended up deleting the dude's stuff, because fuck that guy, and simply ordered this one for cheap from someone else. Funny how that sometimes goes, eh?

The thing that grabbed me about Slaughterer and this release, is that they play a style I hadn't heard in a while. These guys take you back to the days when bands like Devastation (TX), Silent Scream, Morbid Saint and Insanity were straddling the divide between death and thrash metal, and dammit, do I love this! The fact that Slaughterer further spice things up with elements from early Death and Massacre and a sprinkling of blast beats only adds to the fun.

After a cobbled together gunfire intro, the band comes charging out of the gates with a punishing dose of primitive blast beats and beefed up Slayer/Dark Angel riffing, immediately setting the stage for the death/thrash mayhem to come. The songs are high octane fueled bursts of energy, switching from fast sections to slower stomp and back, with emphasis on the thrash metal riffing and raucous leads. The basis of their sound is definitely rooted in the late 80's and early 90's, and to the names I already dropped, you could also add bands like Exhorder, Viking, Demolition Hammer and a bit of Whiplash, but some nods to the early works of Cannibal Corpse and Deicide are there as well. Not quite on the same par when it comes to song writing, of course, but Slaughterer still know how to construct a more than decent old school death/thrash track, and they have the chops and the energy to pull it off in a more than convincing manner. The vocals are the weaker point in this concoction, being a not very imaginative and kinda monotonous throathy growl. This does not diminish the music all that much, but I can't shake the feeling there was more in the can there. Still, this is some primo stuff right here.

The production is something special, though. All the instrumentation is audible, and that is no given in this genre, I guess we all know that. It's awesome to hear that bass plow through the tracks, adding quite some extra power and bottom to the music, but at the same time the triggered kicks and iffy drum sound are just that bit too much up front. It makes the production sound like it doesn't know what it wants to be. It sounds kinda old school, but at the same time oddly contemporary, making the whole land in the middle. Good thing the material and the power are there to pull it all over to the right side.

This is a cool album for all into the bands named above, but I think any thrash metal afficionado without his head up his rectum should be able to appreciate this. A tad rough around the edges here and there, but this album is certainly convincing enough to scratch that primitive death/thrash itch for sure.

Rating: 8 out of 10