HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 4) — “HELL AWAITS”

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Sep 232019
 

 

(This is the fourth installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. Links to the preceding installments are at the end of this post. Our plan is to continue posting the remaining Parts on a daily basis until the series is completed.)

So, I somehow both never sent the original Hell Awaits part of this series to Islander AND then lost it, so I had to rewrite it.  Sorry for the slip-up.  Had to correct this obviously because it’s Slayer’s best old school release.

Hell Awaits in many ways can be viewed as a Haunting The Chapel Pt 2 sort of release.  The style of song-writing and the mood is the same, but what’s changed is that the ambition of both the song-writing and the technical execution has been leveled up quite a bit.  The result is, to me, still Slayer’s most dark and foreboding album (if you can call it that? I’ve always thought of this as another EP) and is one of my all-time favorites from the band’s body of work. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 5) — “REIGN IN BLOOD”

 Album Reviews  22 Responses »
Sep 202019
 

 

(This is the fourth installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. Links to the preceding installments are at the end of this post. Our plan is to continue posting the remaining Parts on a daily basis until the series is completed.  NOTE:  Through an oversight, the assessment of Hell Awaits got skipped in the sequence, but we’ll have that installment after this one.)

Reign In Blood is rightfully considered the breakout album for Slayer in terms of their really becoming noticed in a more widespread sense.  I say rightfully, but while Reign In Blood is a good album, it’s not great. I think for me this shortfall is due to the fact that it distinctly lacks much of what would hook me about Slayer as I explored the rest of their discography.

Kind of odd, right? Considering this is the record that exposed me to the band.  But my exploration of Slayer’s entire body of work ended up reshaping my perception of this album.  While I like it, I’ve come to think that it’s overrated. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 3) — “HAUNTING THE CHAPEL”

 Album Reviews  15 Responses »
Sep 192019
 

 

(This is the third installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. Our plan is to continue posting the remaining installments on a daily basis until it’s completed.)

I really want to know what inspired Slayer going into the writing of Haunting The Chapel.  It’s such an overnight transformation that the question of what caused it to occur boggles the mind. This EP is one of the best ever created in the history of metal.  It’s a top 10er at minimum.  It’s concise, vicious, and unrelenting, and the song-writing and riff-craft speak to a release that had obsessive amounts of loving attention and detail put into it. Everything about this EP is in that sweet spot between speed, technicality, drama, and unrelenting brutality. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 2) — “SHOW NO MERCY”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Sep 182019
 

 

(This is the second installment in an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. With luck, we’ll manage to post the remaining installments on a daily basis until it’s completed.)

The thing about these early proto-thrash albums is, frankly, that a lot of them kind of sound the same. Obviously, this isn’t a fault of the musicians, as this was a developing style at the time and a lot of people fail to remember that these bands all came up in the same area and no doubt fed off each other creatively.

For a proto-thrash record, however, Slayer’s Show No Mercy remains distinctive even for it’s time. While Metallica had a simplistic, straight-forward approach and Megadeth rejoiced in excessive technicality, Slayer knew how to write songs, and this record makes that fact more obvious than any other when placed in the context of when it came out. It’s brimming with energy, its mix is incredibly good for its era, and some of the song-writing ideas here were ahead of their time. Continue reading »

HIGHER CRITICISM: SLAYER (PART 1)

 Album Reviews  12 Responses »
Sep 172019
 

 

(This is the first part of an extensive series of posts by TheMadIsraeli devoted to a retrospective analysis of the discography of Slayer. With luck, we’ll manage to post each installment on a daily basis until it’s completed.)

I fucking love Slayer. The blasphemous flesh flayers are no doubt legendary in metal’s history and its evolution, for good reason. The speed, sheer technicality, outright viciousness, and the new wave of dark tonality they brought was absolutely, existentially crucial in the birth of what we now know as extreme metal.

However, there’s always been a lot of conjecture around this band. Lots of fluff about legacy, how they influenced metal, etc., but no one (that I’ve seen) has applied a hard critical eye and evaluated this band’s entire catalogue of albums as a work of art. Not as a piece of history, not as an influence, not as an example of innovation, but as an assessment of how Slayer have performed as musicians across their body of  work over time. Continue reading »

VOICE OF RUIN: “ACHERON”

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Sep 132019
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by the Swiss band Voice of Ruin, which is set for release on September 27th by Tenacity Music.)

Voice Of Ruin is a band that I get A LOT of promo and PR-related material about in my NCS inbox, and have since the band came about in 2014.  I’ve, like, SORT of listened to these guys?  But have never given them much of a chance because I’ve been confused by the references to melodic death metal, black metal, thrash metal, and metalcore, all of which have been attached to their name.

However, after receiving a promo for the band’s upcoming record Acheron, I decided why the fuck not, I’m going to sit down and really take in an album from these guys for the first time. Continue reading »

IMPERIUM DEKADENZ: “WHEN WE ARE FORGOTTEN”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 122019
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Imperium Dekadenz, which was released on August 30 by Napalm Records.)

I’ve known the name Imperium Dekadenz for quite a number of years but never checked them out. Their music was classified as black metal, which I hated in my early years as a fledgling metalhead and later on because the label “atmospheric black metal” in particular seemed to be frequently assigned to the absolute worst of bedroom production and gimmicky tripe.

Nevertheless, with the impending release of their new album I decided to check them out for the first time ever, because my metal palate has expanded and because, while atmospheric black metal as a label can still be associated with some of the worst music I’ve heard in my life, I’ve discovered that it also harbors an interesting form of black metal, one that embraces the vocal style and the vibe of occult or generally spiritualist mysticism, but is just doomy melodic death metal when you really break it down. Continue reading »

VITRIOL: “TO BATHE FROM THE THROAT OF COWARDICE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 112019
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the debut album by Portland-based Vitriol, which was released by Century Media Records on September 6th.)

I reviewed Vitriol’s debut EP in 2017, which you can read here for context, and I gave it VERY high praise. I found the band to be a refreshing new face eager to return death metal to its late ’90s/early 2000s zenith with a manic style that combined excessive technicality, song-writing prowess, overpowering posture, and commitment to their craft in the vein of Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Hate Eternal, Origin, etc.  Don’t misread my words though. I don’t think these guys are THE NEW FACE of death metal, but in the current age they do have an acute and rare understanding of what makes death metal, especially on the more technical front, so cathartic and engaging.

And now we’re here, with Vitriol’s debut LP To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice.  One thing worth noting is that all four songs from the debut EP are on this record, with the EP’s title track in fact closing the album.  I’m just gonna put my initial hot take about this album out there, and digress from there. Continue reading »

ALGEBRA: “PULSE?”

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Sep 102019
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by the Swiss band Algebra, which will be released on September 30 by Unspeakable Axe Records.)

Progressive thrash metal has always been a tricky sub-genre to tackle, mostly because a lot of the time it just ends up not being thrash anymore. It usually tends to become more like traditional heavy metal with some experimental stuff in it or it becomes death-metal-influenced and looks to bands like Death, Pestilence, etc., to derive its progressive tendencies. Finding progressive thrash metal that’s thrash, while being progressive, while also maintaining the adrenaline mainline intensity and riffing intricacies of the genre, is actually pretty difficult.

For the record, my definition of progressive is not the “power metal but long songs and instrumental virtuosity” brand like Dream Theater, etc.  I think many people would agree that progressivism in metal tends to manifest itself with… Continue reading »

EXHORDER: “MOURN THE SOUTHERN SKIES”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Sep 052019
 

 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the first album in 27 years by NOLA’s Exhorder, which is due out September 20th via Nuclear Blast Records.)

I think if you’re Exhorder, you’re aware there’s an immense weight of expectation upon you in making a comeback.  Many classic or genre-defining bands have tried comebacks, especially in this last decade. Carcass did it and released what was IMO a pretty mediocre album that grasped at the straws of their former glory. At The Gates came back and have released two albums that were so good and consistent it was as if they had never left. A lot of us I know were pretty eager and interested to know how Exhorder would choose to go about a comeback of their own.

Exhorder may be aware of expectations, but as I hear it, Mourn The Southern Skies is a mission statement of a band who simply doesn’t give a fuck about what people expect from them. Continue reading »

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