(Our Norway-based correspondent Chile sent in the following revel of a review for the new album by Germany’s Slaughterday, which was released last week by Testimony Records.)
Some bands are the epitome of working class heroes. You know, somebody who just goes about doing their thing and doing it great, but not really getting the kind of appreciation and attention needed, yet every time the need arises, they come through and become the heroes we both needed and deserved.
German band Slaughterday are exactly that band. Wearing their influences on their proverbial sleeves (they are named after an Autopsy song, after all), they have been doing their own thing for over fifteen years now in a career that has already spawned several great albums.
Last time we met Slaughterday was just a couple of months back when the NCS writer Zoltar did an interview with the band’s bassist/guitarist Jens Finger, with the occasion being them signing to Testimony Records and the first release on the new label being a step away from their usual brand of death metal.
photos by Toni Gunner
The release in question was their EP Terrified which saw the band trying (and succeeding) to produce nine minutes of pure grindcore fun in the vein of the genre classics, but when asked about this potentially new direction for the band, Jens was clear that:
“Terrified was just something we wanted to do for fun — a small experiment. Slaughterday will always be a death metal band. We didn’t want to change direction, just explore something different for a moment. The next album will be back to our usual sound — dark, heavy, and filthy.”
And well, wouldn’t you know it, the time for that next album has come. And wouldn’t you know it even more, it is dark, heavy, and filthy. The band’s fifth full-length record came out on this February 13th, and being named Dread Emperor, it is bound to command your full attention, not in the least helped by the both dread-inducing and imperially-imposing cover art made by the master Pär Olofsson.
Now, people familiar with the band will be happy to hear that Slaughterday indeed does not stray from the path set on the previous albums, and new fans, rejoice, for you have just found another great band. Made of appropriately crunching and grandiose riffs, guitar tone so thick you’d need a chainsaw to cut it, and with the rumbling bass and drums beating down so hard, you only wish you had some kind of armour protecting you from this onslaught.
The relatively slim forty minutes of the album are set in motion by the intro “Enthroned”, which seems resolute to install a new ruler on the said throne of death through a procession of ominous riffs, with the shadows twisting forebodingly between the banners. Rise, you emperor of dread, indeed.
The rest of the album sees the band storming through nine songs that go from strength to strength, masterfully grafting the tissue of menacing Autopsy riffs onto some of the early-days Vader speed and intensity. The aforementioned Jens Finger handling bass and guitar duties is conjoined in perfect understanding with Bernd Reiners who is pulling the other double shift on drums and vocals.
It is exactly this union that makes the band operate on such a high level of quality throughout the album. Every song is bursting with the energy of a thousand suns and you needn’t look further than that opening riff on “Obliteration Crusade”, which, yes, obliterates all who stand in their way.
We already mentioned that the guitar tone is thick, very thick actually, best witnessed on one of the prime cuts of the album, that being “Rapture of Rot”, which just lays down the law, and as we all know, the greater the mass, the greater the force of attraction.
The album also benefits from a fantastic production job; everything sounds appropriately massive, as one would expect from a death metal album. The resplendently gruesome title track is but just one example of the fury unleashed and is closely followed by the buzzing “Necrocide” in the band’s quest for glory.
Elsewhere, like corpses roaming around in search of their graves, songs such as the delightfully doomish “The Forsaken Ones” or the bass-driven crusher “Dethroned” make this album even more varied and furthermore showcase the band’s propensity for great songwriting.
In the end, there will always be a need for music that just grabs you by the neck and screams in your face, “The meat is back on the menu, boys (and girls)”. Throw in a couple of taters (or raw fish, if it pleases you), and you have yourself a real feast. So what better soundtrack to accompany this than Slaughterday’s assorted choice of dark, heavy, and filthy riffs.
Dread Emperor is out now on Testimony Records in all available formats. Orders for the record and all related merchandise are possible via label and Bandcamp stores.
https://slaughterday666.bandcamp.com/album/dread-emperor-1