Strappado

It's kind of ridiculous to look at this as a full-length, let alone the sole full-length release by Slaughter for over 30 years. Still, this short adventure into early death metal mixed with hardcore punk influence and blackened thrash that was arguably before its time, is worth it. This run of tracks prove that, especially as an 80s band, you don't need to be flashy or complex to get your point across, and that sometimes a short, pissed off burst of 1 or 2 simple riffs is enough to make a tune catchy and ridiculously heavy. Couple that with the HM-2 and right here he have an unsung classic, which most people probably discovered from Fenriz.

The way this is produced has aged well, with a bottom-heavy guitar tone that ironically sounds thin, but the bass pierces through the speakers and almost "bounce" alongside the drums, making the simplicity of the songs that much heavier. Another attractive aspect to Strappado is the insane speed, especially on the first half. The vocals can barely keep up with these 300BPM riffs, and this adds to the rawness and charm from a record this old. The title track, for example, is less than 90 seconds long, and there's still 3 verses, 3 choruses and a solo section. The rapidity of what's coming at you was especially unheard of for the time.

With this in mind, a lot of the stronger parts on the record are slower, more groovy sections that focus on atmosphere and eerie storytelling over some great song structures. Incinerator is probably the best track on here, with its crushing, 2 power chord riff played at a tempo just slow enough to carry the track like a tank rolling over a sea of corpses. This is also where contrast comes in on Strappado, as the intro to this song is Disintegrator, another comically fast track that serves as a transition into something slower, and heavier. It puts an emphasis on what works in the album, and it definitely makes the standout songs, stand out more.

Apart from this, you just can't fault the strong writing on the record. Parasites has a great chugging riff, although it does go on for a bit, even for its 2 minute runtime. The second half of Strappado is slightly weaker but stays catchy and the energy and hunger captured on here is audible in that none of the songs become stale. Also, for what's essentially a third rate thrash band in terms of popularity, the drummer is tight especially with something this extreme. Most of the rhythm sections straddles between a skank beat, and a similar beat but slower, and it adds to the pounding atmosphere.

Then we have Fuck of Death and Tales of The Macabre, the latter of which is probably the most famous Slaughter track because of its memorable drum intro and a unique way of storytelling in the lyrics, although it does sound pretty juvenile. This is ultimately my biggest complaint about the album: there are no signs of any maturity here, musically or lyrically, and while I don't expect progressive music under introspection or social commentary, it tends to feel a bit outdated, especially compared to its contemporaries of, say, Celtic Frost, who a few years earlier were adding to their dark, creepy dynamics with realistic, psychological themes such as the lyrics of Into The Crypts of Rays. Anyway, that's pretty much nitpicking. Strappado is definitely a classic and never stops being fun to go back to.

No, not the commercial cock rock wimps. As I'm sure most of you are aware, Slaughter are the cult underground Canadian death metallers that famously rehearsed with Chuck Schuldiner of Death. Beyond that, Slaughter were highly influential to the death metal genre and even a little bit to the genre of black metal. The band's sole release (Unless one counts Not Dead Yet and Fuck of Death as being Slaughter albums), Strappado is an unrelenting musical attack that more than earns its cult classic status.

Let's start with the production. Strappado falls into the category of "albums that sound exactly like the cover" metal albums. The production sounds gritty and almost putrid. I feel like "chainsaw guitar" is an overused descriptor in metal nowadays, but the guitars on this album certainly warrant that description. This album, along with the equally intense Horrified by Michigan death grinders in Repulsion, may be the source of the Swedish death metal guitar sound made famous by bands like Entombed. The drumming is a savage barrage that permeates throughout the mix. Some would describe the drumming on this album as "no more than senseless smashing", but there's a lot more to it than that. The drums on Strappado almost have a driving force to them, a rhythmic pounding that rolls along with the riffs and provides a fluid momentum to the music. The bass in the mix is sort of a deep, throbbing pulse that helps the album with its almost putrid and necro production. Like Kreator, Slaughter has two vocalists. Dave Hewson provides the main vocals in the form of a deeper, Tom G. Warrior styling. Terry Sadler provides lead vocals on three of the songs (four if your version has the bonus tracks) and has a nasally vocal style similar to Rob Urbinati from Sacrifice or perhaps some crossover thrash bands. I prefer Dave Hewson's vocals, but Sadler's songs wouldn't sound the same with Dave on vocals.

This album is a fantastic collection of total death music. The apparent influence of Celtic Frost is cast throughout this album, along with crossover like D.R.I. and Cryptic Slaughter. I truly enjoy the diversity in speed on this album. For instance, "Tortured Souls" has a breakneck, total speed verse with a doomy, Frost-like chorus. That rhythmic driving force thing I mentioned with the drums is especially prevalent in songs like "The Curse" and "Nocturnal Hell", rolling the song along on a warpath of terror like a tank plowing through a battlefield. Of course, you have crushingly heavy slow songs like the ever romantic "Fuck of Death" and the evil "Tales of the Macabre" (which also showcases the album's murky bass sound). And who could forget the destructive thrashing duo of "Disintegrator/Incinerator"? Classic. The only song that doesn't really do much for me is "Parasites". Not to say that it's a bad track (it has a killer main riff), but it attempts to do this sort of weird tempo change that a lot of 90s death metal bands would do and here it just doesn't work. The lyrics on this album are great, too. "Tales of the Macabre" in particular has a lot of menacing imagery in its lyrics and are delivered well by Terry Sadler's in a callous, nasally snarl. I would be an idiot if I didn't mention the insane bonus tracks that are on the reissues of this album. More thrashhard tracks like "Death Dealer" and "One Foot in the Grave". The "I'm the dealer, give me death" lyric in "Death Dealer" is hilariously stupid, like something you'd read on an early Sodom release.

At the end of the day, Strappado is a cult classic death/thrash metal release for a reason. The songs are all concise, catchy, and brutal with decent musicianship. The lower quality production and total death musical approach may scare away some modern listeners, but for veteran headbangers it shouldn't be an issue. This is one of the finest Canadian metal albums to come forth from the 80s underground, and considering its competition, that's saying a lot. If you're a death metal fan, this one's mandatory listening.

Selling cuts: Basically everything, but especially "The Curse", "Fuck of Death", "Tales of the Macabre", and "Nocturnal Hell"

Back in the days of early death metal antiquity (aka 1985-87) there were a number of massive leaps in the evolution of thrash metal, to the point where certain bands were beginning to wander completely off the reservation. This accounts for not only the birth of death metal as a distinct genre, but also for the common elements that it shared with its de facto birth-giver during its infancy. One would be hard pressed to label an album like Kreator's Pleasure To Kill or Slayer's Reign In Blood as death metal, yet the overt similarities they share with Death's debut Scream Bloody Gore and the early offerings of other Florida scene affiliates like Obituary, Malevolent Creation and several others is impossible to miss. It is within this period of transition, in all its stylistically ambiguous glory, that a short-lived creature of the same scene named Slaughter came to be, a band far more worthy of the name than the glam band that would become better known for it.

The lone full length studio offering that this band offered up in 1987, dubbed Strappado, can be viewed as both typical and atypical, depending on from what angle it is approached. The deep, muddy, almost doom oriented guitar tone bears a greater degree of similarity to the then developing Florida death metal scene than a typical thrash album of either the Bay Area variety, or even the darker and more twisted sound of the Teutonic scene. In fact, one wouldn't be too far off in likening this to the sound that Death would exhibit on Leprosy, though it's far rougher and rawer here, almost to the point of passing for an early 90s demo. It is noteworthy to mention that Chuck Schuldiner was briefly involved in this band prior to this album's release, which may account for some of these similarities, though what Slaughter ended up coming out with is far more primitive, almost to the point of hinting at a hardcore influence at times.

While this album definitely has a thrashing character to it, including but not limited to the more gruff-driven vocal delivery, by thrash metal standards the way these songs are put together is so out of sync with where thrash metal was circa 1987 that most who encountered it at the time were probably not sure what to make of it. Indeed, the song lengths almost want to suggest that this album is a bizarre take on the crossover style, in no small part because of how basic the riff set is and how minimalist the song structures tend to be. When encountering the title song that kicks this thing off, things are so chaotic that comparisons to Repulsion and maybe even some of Morbid Angel's material off of Altars Of Madness could be in order, which is interesting given that the former was still in demo mode, whereas the latter wasn't quite in this territory insofar as their limited recorded material from up till 1987 is concerned.

This isn't to say that Strappado is so completely off in its own world as to be unrecognizable from what was going on in 1987, as several of the riffs at work here can definitely be qualified as a sloppier version of something that Jeff Hanneman might have come up with, and the lead guitar work is definitely possessed of a similarly chaotic tendency as a typical Slayer lead break from the mid 80s. Likewise, certain songs like "Incinerator" and "Parasites" tend to spend more time in mid-tempo land and lean a bit more heavily on a primitive thrash crunch that is obscured a bit by the muddier guitar tone. Indeed, this entire album tends to function on a largely 2-dimensional basis, where the somewhat longer songs will coast away at mid-tempo and occasionally break into brief fits of sonic chaos, whereas the ones that keep it really short just blast away at full speed like a hoard of zombies on crack.

The historical significance of this album is without question, as very few bands were this far along in the progression of brutality that was taking shape in the recent aftermath of Seven Churches. That all being said, there are valid criticisms of this album getting a bit too repetitive at times and some of the later songs on the track list dragging a bit. The down-tempo sections almost seem to hint at the eventual death n' roll craze that would be ushered in by Entombed and Six Feet Under a little less than 10 years later, most likely due to some remnant Black Sabbath influences at play in the riff set, as per the example of "Tortured Souls". It's not quite enough to make this an obsolete piece of history like the SRB rockets on a space shuttle, but it definitely wants for some more activity and development when compared to other pioneering works out of Possessed, Sepultura, Death and a few others. It's a classic, but even the classics can have a few glaring imperfections.

I've heard the band Slaughter be called a Thrash Gem, however I think there was a mistake. The only album by Slaughter is Strappado. They would pull a kind of Sex Pistols thing where they re-release the same album a hundred times.

If you ever wanted to hear bad classic thrash this is the album to find it. Personally, I thought it never existed and that it was all good. I enjoy bands like Razor, Exciter, Vio-lence, Kreator, Destruction, and the like. They are good thrash bands so I figure that I wouldn't find a bad classic thrash band until I came up Strappado by Slaughter.

Let's get started with the lyrics. The lyrics are weak and rather childish. "Tyrant of Hell" suffers some of the worst thrash lyrics around. "Tyrant of Hell- torturing you slow, Tyrant of hell- extracting what you know, Tyrant of hell- you're on the brink of doom, Tyrant of hell- is coming for you soon". The lyrics are cheesy, weak, and they sound rushed or not well thought out. They seemed to care about what sounded "extreme" or "shocking" and not good. "Incinerator" suffers this too with "They fed upon semen, The government's a demon" just that alone is terrible. It's a bad rhyme with bad lyrics. In "Shadow of Death" they try to be tough with an intro of "One, Two, Fuck You". How bland, mediocre, and unamazing. I couldn't interpret if that was supposed to have shock value or be humorous. In "Death Dealer" he says "I am Death Dealer, Give me death". Where's the sense in that? Is he asking to die or is he saying that he wants death to be dealt, this I'm asking as a serious question. If he wants death to be dealt that wouldn't make him "Death Dealer" then, so that wasn't exactly thought out too well. He also mentions the word "necro-cannibal", in context he says "necro-cannibal, eats dead cunt" more meaningless "shock", in "Death Dealer". I'd imagine that the victim in the scenario would already be dead or he wouldn't have his flesh consumed. If you were to eat a man while he was still living he'd clearly die before you could finsih eating him, thus making the word "necro-cannibal" another poorly thought out lyric. Another weak lyric is "One foot in the grave, now your almost dead". There's no explanation, it's just there. It lacks a justification as to why and it lacks real relevance in general. They also use the "One, Two, Fuck You" thing again in "Surrender or Die". They also abuse saying the name of the song as first few words of the song. I could sit here all night and type these out but I'd rather not for there's more to talk about.

The guitar is questionable. The palm muting, a skill used in basically every song that's thrash metal, sounds mangled and poorly excuted, sorta like the rest of the album. The guitarists sound like they didn't practice a needed and basic skill. Whether this is the quality or the playing is questionable, but it's probably their playing because the quality isn't that bad. The power chords are just bland because they repeat. They barely shift a fret away from the first power chord in the riff. You can hear this and it seems like they didn't try hard enough for any variation. Like they wanted you to hear the same thing so many times in a row. In
"Tyrant of Hell" it sounds like they ripped off "Anarchy in the UK" for the verse and chorus riffs. Repeating a riff is abused in thrash sometimes and seems like Slaughter only picked three riffs for a song and repeated them. I swear this, you could count how many different riffs you hear in a song on one hand. They only use an intro riff, a verse riff, and a chorus riff. Sometimes the intro riff is the verse riff and sometimes there's very little difference between the verse and chorus riffs. It sounds lazy, the band could've done more with it but they chose not to. In "Tales of the Macabre" they bend poorly like the had little practice at it.

The drums are no more than senseless smashing. It just sounds disorganized because it mostly follows the guitars which themselves are disorganized. The bass is invisible as it is on most releases both good and bad, so this doesn't surprise me.

The vocals lack a varied delivery. The singer just blatantly shouts the words with no differentiation. It's just monotonous the whole way through. In one song he shouts something in a high pitch squeal reminiscent to that of a young child throughing a temper tantrum. When he does try to make it sounds different it just fails horribly. He makes himself sound really stupid, for lack of a better word, and it fails to add any interest into the music at hand. It also doesn't help when the lyrics are weak. It does little to help the vocals. They don't compliment each other like a good band. In "Tales of the Macabre", which again suffers poor lyrics, he shouts "die", an intelligent move, in a stereotypical halloween witch voice. I also don't like the way he says "macabre", and I'm not just saying that. It's like saying the word "route" like "rowt" to me and he does it in the way that irritates me because it's wrong.

The quality is ok, nothing top special. Everything is at a decent volume. The bass isn't present, the vocals take the front, the works. At least Slaughter got the quality right but it is no where near close to having any redeeming quality. I actually wish I could smite it. Like the mother of an irritating person, I wish I could slap it's shit. The quality allowed me to hear every last bit of horrible composing to dare call it's self metal, let alone thrash metal.

If you're like me and you thought that classic thrash couldn't possibly have a single shitty band then you're as wrong as I was. My best advice for you is to avoid at all costs. The album, or just one of the very short songs, isn't worth your time. That's time you could be spending listening to real thrash metal. I wish I never listened to this album so I could still live in the sweet ignorant state of mind I once dwelled, but now it's too late...

Previously I wrote a review for this comparing the album to Slayer's "Reign in Blood". It was very long and convoluted and sort of danced around discussing the actual music contained herein. Don't ask me why I did this, I don't know. What I do know is that review completely failed at conveying the sheer intensity and awesomeness that is Slaughter and in particular is "Strappado".

First of all, Slaughter cannot be compared to any of their contemporaries because they were totally their own trip and more insane than any band around at the time. Secondly long and convoluted in no way reflects this album. It is short and immediately let's you know what you're in for and proceeds to remind you every second of the way.

Slaughter, as I've said, we're insane and they want nothing more than for you to understand their madness, except maybe to crush you into the ground with their anvil of sound. Brian Taylor's production on this record sounds like nothing else from this time. The guitar is just a huge slab of concrete in the mix featuring one of the dirtiest tones of the '80s. The drums must be heard to be believed. Sumners plays some of the most brutal proto-blasts ever, never compromising speed for heaviness or vice verse. The bass is heavy as fuck too, greatly enhancing but not overpowering in this wall of pummeling noise. The vocals are simply perfect. From Dave Hewson's ultra-grim death yells to Sadler's maniacal speed chanting the vocals fit the insanity of the music superbly.

That leads me to the point of this review: THE MUSIC! Slaughter play a style of metal undeniably in the death/thrash vein. However, though that may be a suitable classification for nowadays, when I hear this record I can hear that these guys were playing the death metal of their day. It is a primordial brand of death metal very much informed by hardcore punk and thrash but the aesthetic is the same as all death metal. These guys wanted to make BRUTAL music and never have I heard a recording from this time to have succeeded so well in capturing this vintage sense of brutality.

If you're a fan of Death Strike, Hellhammer (anyone?), "Morbid Tales", early Death, "Seven Churches", Sacrifice ("Torment in Fire") or just primitive fucking madness, get this NOW!

Seeing as Metal Mind went and rearranged the track list on the latest reissue of this album I've conjured my own, preferred one, working the bonus tracks in:

1. Stappado
2. The Curse
3. Parasites
4. Disintegrator/Incinerator
5. One Foot in the Grave
6. Tyrant of Hell
7. F.O.D.
8. Tortured Souls
9. Maim to Please
10. Nocturnal Hell
11. Death Dealer
12. Tales of the Macabre

Slaughter were probably the first inspiration for my patriotism. Then came Razor and Sacrifice then Infernal Majesty and Blasphemy and many more to follow. Slaughter are just such a great example of true Canadiacs of metal. They show that from so early in the development of extreme metal Canadians were already so ahead of the game and carving their own niche of insanity. I could go on but i think for now... "Fuck of death will see-fice!"

Whether you're a paraplegic, wheel-chair ridden, member of FEMA, or just brain-dead and moving your heart monitor, something is able to compensate for lack and thereof from an external source such as Strappado. 'My ear is dripping doctor.' 'Well...what have you been listening to, son?' Slaughter, yes, the band that would make Hellhammer look like they came second, and Slaughter came first, due to a primitiveness that rivals and begs for an Encino Man Part 2. Something so basic that it says we don't know how to properly play our instruments, so we'll even the playing field by manipulating, hammering and just out right demoralizing the traditional song-writing structure. Just about everything is in excess: a top of that, a pinch of this, a punch in the gut with that. Like skipping the list and steps of rules on the box and just going ahead and tossing ingredients into the mixing bowl. 'Now, now that's too much.' 'I'm hungry and I wanna eat!' At the time, I don't know if this group of jerks knew when over-indulging that they would still appeal to listeners—generation-plethora now—decades later with a brand of ravenous music that causes tempers to flare, blood pressure to boil, or out right bullying from even the weakest guy in the room who now has the confidence of a knee-hung NBA superstar when grossly applying his inner ear to Strappado.

When Canada's Slaughter originally put this out, Strappado was apparently only released behind the shroud of maple-leaves on the border, guarded by maple-syrup slurping eh-spouters, guarded against enlarged Americans, with each region carefully separated by baguettes; sounds yummy. These are the stereotypes that we have come to. Can't we just get along? Well, if later exports—hidden black secrets—would surface as a kind of paraphernalia to elevate conflict, then Strappado might be among the very few that have broken through the red-tape of controversy. Death-thrash is one of the main products here, including a side that fairs with hardcore, or punk taken with human growth hormone to create a bulky, or P.U.M.P.E.D., appearance. Some of the repeated structure is evident or even directly borrowed from something like Discharge's Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing. Some songs have more riffs per square inch, but others might repeat themselves and include different vocals or a solo overtop to add varying structure. Deep rough-house vocals from Dave Hewson would lend a few pre-thick death metal antics that we would know a few years later more fluently. Downtuned guitars, though with a stifled thickness, are just as common now as a mop on top of a metal-head's dome. Except all done with slim production value and with limited takes to boot (no pun intended).

There's a rhyming scheme here that is used to the benefit of some songs where alternate and couplet versing is used. There's still that slightly lingering musical medium, acting as a kind of glue among the unglued. Some sections are said in a fast enough fashion that it might go unnoticed, as well as others counter that and are used with an accented pronunciation at the end and captures a sort of narration with a bleak resolve. A small inconsequential line that is a painful sight-for-the-sore-ear, yet happens to be a needle-in-a-hay-stack compared to the others is: "They fed upon semen, the governments a demon." Though this is compared with one that works towards being justifiably distasteful: "...naked cadaver, ready to mount, open the mouth, go down for the count."

With songs dedicated to "Leeches everywhere, (the movie) Poltergeist, (the book) A History of Torture, and Charles Manson" Terry Sadler was a neighborly lyricist who knew how to perfectly captivate our burning, hateful hearts. Except Dave Hewson's vocals knew how to overpower and lead the recording more viciously. Sadler's voice is only on a few songs in leading position and Hewson's are in leading fashion for the majority of the recording. They switch up who mainly vocalizes and only in select moments add a lead/back-up set-up. Sadler has a tinier voice, although with more spunk, but not as much a commanding presentation. I still like how he projects himself in certain areas with some attitude, yet using a mostly higher tone, but still with a somewhat rough and manipulated voice. These still aren't singing attempts however. Hewson displays a burly enough voice that you probably wouldn't want to insinuate a fight even just talking over the phone. He uses a deep, almost one-tone, not growled but used with a throaty technique—the laryngitis of vocalizing. When going with a faster section, he might use a speedier method and an easier to understand gruff by comparison to the mid-paced sections. The best part about them is his excessive diaphragm upstarts. The kind that steams and drips with testosterone and emulates an unhealthy amount of Mr. T. Warrior. Mostly they are in the beginning of a guitar start-up, yet in other areas he'll add them like the tic of a Tourette's infliction, and placed in somewhat random areas and just outright ruling though not making total sense.

Strappado uses a decent amount of mid-sections as it does use some faster thrash moments. Blasts didn't make it due to this being recorded in the beginning of '86 and from some earlier year material from demos. This doesn't leave out Sumners from socking it to his snare; pounding it with force instead of outrageous speed. Following along a Dave Lombardo line of thought, who was also a hard-hitter by drumming standards. Sumners is actually a proficient drummer, using tom hits and mini-rolls rather than full rolls, but most importantly changing it up enough to add a moving element to the album where it should be moving.

Some tracks might use a similar pace all the way through, for instance 'F.O.D.' will use a mid, bordering on slower, paced structure and a similar crushing riff for the duration of the song; a track that is bare-bones even by primitive standards and yet still great for re-listens. 'The Curse' is a steady thrash song with a simplistic, repeated riff that works due to Hewson overtop taking the reins of the momentum. A good example of a flip-out song structure here is the fifth track, 'Parasites,' which starts out like it could be F.O.D. part II, and then goes into its own riff. It has a moderate pace and then abruptly adds a guitar line that probably has nothing to do with the initial one, which has the song create its own identity and stick out. Like taking a stroll in an already bad neighborhood, and something rustles and actually pops out of the bushes, which can make the situation even more nerve-wracking and remembered at the back of your mind when coming across it again. Done in the same recording sessions, but stuck at the end of the earlier and later re-releases for longer time length for the album, 'One Foot in the Grave' is another that begins somewhat unimposing, with a punkish sounding rhythm and then another flip-out moment as Hewson rapidly says the Plasmatics coined (think 'Masterplan') "one, two, fuck you" to break into heart-exploding energy as the song reaches break-neck speeds.

There are some solos scattered about. These aren't all over the place like they are on Slayer's Reign in Blood for a comparative sense. Though he man-handles the whammy bar and produces chaotic eruptions none the less. Somehow they sound fitting even though you know they aren't scaled or in key. But ultimately it seems to add to the brashness here. The guitars should be of no surprise and are just as simplistic as the other heckling instruments. He might use more of an out-of-control punk structure of only a few simplistic strummed-out chords when faster, and a weighted amount of palm mutes when mid-paced. A lot of the notes seem to be within the deepest of notes, the thickest of areas on the neck of the guitar, sometimes hardly even moving his fingers far and to. What's the need to, when the material manages to be this outrageous and heavy?

Canada's Slaughter brings about a recording that was against the grain for its time and is still now capable of bringing metal heads into a comatose from so much unhindered excitement. Even in production, Strappado is a rougher and granular version of some of the more accessible material to come out then, and this is even referring to the remixed and remastered CD version from '93 on Diabolic Force. Although I'm not sure how it sounds compared to the earlier, or the editions in the millennium but I can imagine it is identical to this last one. This definitely gives it a raw and natural feel and it wouldn't be the same without it. Like a guy behind a mixing board and a step above the musicians right there playing live through your speakers. The amount of bass and thickness that was involved is a great addition too. Probably them maxing out whatever their amps and settings were capable of at the time. Granted it is somewhat stifled in areas and not the same or as distinct as some of the recordings with this feature from even the early 90s or even now. Yet, it is something that ultimately still holds up, and paved ways in extreme metal for the ones that had originals or even dubs in their possession from tape trading at the time.

This is either going to be considered noise or music by whichever thinking-camp you come from, yet it was something that made impressions through atmosphere and bluntness. This could even bring about unintentional humor from someone who still listens to or at least knows in-your-face metal, because some moments are in excess. Yet in the same sense, it could break someone's nerve who is the everyday stern-faced clean-and-cut music type. This still finds itself at a mode that could of been deemed too amateur to see the light of day, too unbalanced to be worthwhile. Yet, it does have these things included, and probably has no shame at doing so to begin with, though bringing that raw and also creative power to the table. Like the new machine with even more unpractical horsepower but giving that new and unexperienced part of your brain, that sends shock-waves down your spine, a long time buddy to play with.

Strappado. This is a cult for the early death/thrash metal movement and a great album. In Canada there was another band that was doing more or less the same Slaughter music in the same period, and that band was Sacrifice. They were the precursors in that beautiful country of a genre that was developing worldwide with great bands such as Death, Possessed, Kreator, Sodom, Bathory, Sepultura, Sarcofago and many others.

Their goal was to bring the classic violent thrash metal to another level in brutality and heaviness. The experiment was achieved here, without forgetting the main genre it comes from. More or less 30 minutes to show all their abilities in destroying everything with panzer drums and fast guitars. Their distortion was already innovative and pure death metal with a fuzz, heavy as hell, sound. The vocals were half way between Celtic Frost down tone and the classic thrash metal ones.

“Disintegrator/ Incinerator” is a classic. The fast tempos are focused on the first part with a following long series of mid paced, obscure and bludgeoning riffs. The snare drum sound is really old fashioned with dark and pounding beats. Impossible not to notice a heavy Hellhammer influence in the guitars of “Nocturnal Hell” and they never forget that lesson in violence by the Suisse masters of doom/black-thrash during the whole album. So we can find lots of ultra-heavy mid paced parts, suddenly interrupted by faster sounds in pure old thrash style.

“Tortured Souls” and “Parasites” are the classic examples of proto-death metal intensity with lots of dark passages, few growls and sudden speed parts to blow up your head. So often the singer says “Ugh!” like Tom G. Warrior and I like it a lot. The vocals parts are totally insane with that speed and dark tonality. It seems that the more you go on listening to this album, the more you face truly heavy and fast songs! Yep! So listen to “The Curse”, “Strappado” and “Maim To Please”. Holy shit…this is unbelievable. They even destroyed the previous, already great, songs.

This album is total violence with a great sense of songwriting and truly admirable attitude. This is a cult that no one in this kind of sounds should overlook. An earth-shattering piece of art. You must buy it and that’s the bottom line because Slaughter said so.

This beats the shit out of the glam band with the same name. Strappado is as far from glam as possible, really. As a play on words of the glam Slaughter's hit song "Up All Night", the Canadian Slaughter's slogan should be "Up all night, kill all day". That's the message I get from Strappado! The Canadian Slaughter plays a primitive form of death/thrash, with a healthy dose of hardcore and Hellhammer.

Slaughter very effectively use two vocalists. Two vocalists can really help vary the songs on an album that could become one-dimensional. One of them does death grunts and thows in a bunch of Tom G. Warrior "Ugh"s for good measure. The other vocalist shouts with a heavy sneer. They both definitely sound Canadian, just listen every time they yell "Incinera-toooor!"

The bass is pretty nice too. It is dead center between the guitars, giving them a powerful low-end complement.

Then there's the drums. This guy absolutely piledrives the kit. It doesn't matter what speed the song is, he still beats hard. He doesn't play too sloppy either.

Slaughter plays at exactly two speeds here: thrash so fast that the drums border on blast beats, and bludgeoning midpaced songs. The music isn't too complicated; each song tends to have one riff that repeats over and over, but never to a level that bores the listener. I'm a really bad guitarist but was able to figure most of the album's riffs out in a few minutes. Not that these riffs aren't good or anything, they're kickass.

The bottom line is that Strappado is a genre-defining death/thrash album. It's filled to the brim with catchy thrash riffs, and is so fast in places that you can't help but headbang to it. Any serious thrasher needs this. Period.

Like a tank that annihilates everything in its way, Slaughter were masters of destruction. This quartet of musical assassins played a combination of death, thrash, and crossover. Picture DRI or Cryptic Slaughter covering Death's demos before Scream Bloody Gore, and some Hellhammer, with a meaner vocalist. Tune your guitar down about a half-step, and adjust your tone until you get a crunchy sound that makes the amp feel like it's regurgitating. Then, throw in about ten thousand riffs that you can headbang to, some of them fast and some mid-paced. Write some of the greatest lyrics to go along with those riffs. Get someone who knows how to properly smack the living maggots out of a drumset, and make sure it's loud and clear in the mix, without drowning out any of the other instruments. Last but definitely not least, ensure that the bass player isn't there just to physically fill the shoes of the bass player (see: 99% of bands). Now condense all that into 9 tracks, and slap your standard oldschool death metal style cover art on it. Then call it something awesome like "Strappado" (a form of hanging by the hands which are tied behind the back of the victim) and go get wasted.

What really makes this album click is the synergy present. This isn't the fastest, heaviest, or most technical album you'll hear, but all the components work perfectly together, which is more than I can say for most albums out there. What we have here is a thrash and death metal hybrid which just works. I don't understand why so many people consider Scream Bloody Gore to be the first death metal album; I guess they haven't heard Slaughter. Ok, so this is more thrash than death, but SBG was somewhat similar in that respect too (not to mention Seven Churches, but that came out a year before this). Anyways, I was saying how this album is vile. If you like anything resembling late 80's South American thrash you're going to drool over this. You know, that slightly downtuned thrash/death -- 80's death, the classic kind -- with a healthy dose of mid-paced riffs (but lots of fast ones too, don't cry), and lower but still rasp and pissed-off vocals. There is some variety among those too, by the way. For the most part you'll get those 80's death metal-ish vocals, but there are some of the cleaner, snotty thrash vocals too, and they sound fucking awesome. In fact, the vocals (in places, not always) along with the tone of the guitar, are the high points of this album. Or higher I should say, since there aren't any low ones. I absolutely worship the sound of the guitar on this album. It has the perfect compromise between clarity and rawness, plus it sounds ridiculously heavy. Perhaps the fact that the bass is actually audible and works WITH the guitar (instead of against it, or in most cases not at all) enhances that effect.

I can listen to this album all the way through without skipping any song, and that's not very common, considering the fact that usually there is at least one song that's harder to get into. Obviously they aren't all equally good, and the ones that are vary from person to person, but there really isn't any filler material here. Disintegrator starts off violently, and you're up to speed in no time. Frantic strumming and drumming carries you through the first 50 seconds, before you're ordered to make way for the Incinerator! And you have to either comply, or get terminated. Incinerator is a mid-to-fast paced song with some simplistic but effective riffs and one of the best choruses in all of metal, sound and lyrics wise. It is a perfect example of the aforementioned kinds of vocals, with the word "Incinerator" being grunted in the death metal tone and the subsequent verses, along with the rest of the song, being shouted in that cleaner but thrash-as-fuck style. Then comes Nocturnal Hell which is slower but has enough riff power to damage your neck. Fuck of Death follows, which is one of the best songs here. Despite it being relatively slow (really it's mid-paced) and somewhat repetitive, the underlying riff is so brilliant and brutal, that the near 4 minutes for which it ruins your stereo (or whatever you use) go by surprisingly quick. Parasites is another one of my favorites, as it has the slower riffs pitted against the fast chaotic ones, a changing of pace which is appreciated by all those who are into crossover. The title track is another vicious number, and while it lacks in variety it makes up for it with speed and aggression.

The highlight of this album has got to be the closing track though, Tales of the Macabre. This is one of my favorite songs ever written, not only musically but lyrically as well. In fact, listen to this song really loudly and follow along with the lyrics, and you will understand. It is one of the most rewarding listening experiences you will live in metal, without a doubt. It is beyond heavy, it is apocalyptic. It starts out with drums which are soon joined by a primitive bass, and then comes that ungodly guitar. Listen to how the bass supports the guitar through the riffs, while the drums maintain the pace and roll at the end of every other riff. Though simplistic and not very fast (save for the ending where it speeds up a lot), it is absolutely glorious in its perfection and morbidness. Check out this lyrical excerpt for example: "Decapitation will not be swift / I'm gonna deal the wretched blow / Hades assassin, killer supreme / Lurk in the shadow of the crow" and try to find something that tops that (outside of this song naturally, nice try). Then comes the "One two one two FUCK YOU!" and the fast riffage, along with some of the best screams found here, before this monster is finally brought to rest. What a masterpiece of dark art this is, words evade me.

Slaughter played with conviction and their music was aggressive, catchy, and relentless. Look no further than Strappado for confirmation. The conclusion is self-evident. You must add Strappado to your collection, or continue posing. There is no room for middle ground.

Warning: this review is written while listening the ORIGINAL vinyl, not the reissue. So the tracklisting is: Strappado / The Curse / Disintegrator / Incinerator / Parasites / F.O.D. / Tortured Souls / Nocturnal Hell / Tales of Macabre. Enjoy

First song, "Strappado" starts with a guitar "riff" screaming like thousand pigs in a tornado make of barbed wire. Guitar screams low and then high, and the drums kick in. I'm not sure is it Dave Hewson or Terry Sadler singing now, but it is really working. There no real hooks in song, just mayhem. If you read the lyrics while listening, the only thing you can hear there is the "Strappado!"-scream!

Second one, "The Curse" is a heavy song. If it was Sadler singing on the first one, it's definetily Hewson on this one. Vocals sound more low pitched and dark. Like Hellhammer! Guitar sounds like crocodiles wrapped in burning barbed wire!

Next one(s), "Disintegrator/Incinerator" are like two in one, but I always like to think them as two different song. "Disintergrator" doesen't have a chorus really, just insane blasting. "Incinerator" starts with vocalist screaming "Make way for the incinerator". First, the vocals sound quite calm, but then the chorus. The is so sick! Best chorus ever! Backing vocalist is screaming just "Incinerator" and Hewson chants some fucking apocalyptic curses! This isn't really a fast song, but definetily the best one on the A-side. There's also a solo, sounds like almost every 80's death/thrash bands, but it fits in the song. Try reading the lyrics while listening, feels like the world is gonna end! "Didin't learn from the past..."

Last song on the A-side, "Parasites", starts with a hellish riff, cast from Hewson's guitar. The sound is just unbelieveable, so cruel. I heard some picturing it like this: "Rotten chainsaws floated in boiling oil", and that's just perfect. The chorus of this song looks like catchy on the lyrics sheet, but when heard, it's just "parasitesblaablaaparasites". A fucking mayhem!

"Fuck of Death", what a song. Starts with a heaviest riff ever made, expecially when the album is made in 1986. Hewson has this echo in his voice, it sounds like he's standing on a pile on dead bodies. I can almost smell the stench of death! Also Ron Sumners' drumwork is heavy as shit! Every time he hits his bassdrum, my spine just gets more twisted. I can't say that this is the worst song on the album, it's just the least perfect.

"Tortured souls". Yeah. This song really makes me feel like having a strappado (a mediaval torture technic). Chorus makes me feel like in hell. Two guys are shouting "We are the tortured souls".

This is the second last one, "Nocturnal Hell". The title is awesome, pictures the song perfectly. Twisted riff, heavy drumming and the vocals sounds like screaming from the bottom of a grave. Praise Satan for inventing echo! This is very "hellhammerish" song but Hellhammer could have never done it this fast!

Wow, now, this is the last one and truly the best one: "Tales of Macabre". I think this sounds even more like Hellhammer than "Nocturnal Hell". Like HH's "Aggressor", this one starts with a drum intro. Heavy as hell! Then Sadler starts to play something awful with his bass. Sounds like he's trying to learn the song while playing in. Then, he starts to play the riff. Then, the guitar hits in and the riff is a one twisted fuck! This is soooo apocalyptic. After repeating few different riffs for a while, Hewson starts chanting. "Listen to my tale of mayhem that my mouth does spew". It sounds so mean, so dark, so evil. Then he's screaming like inside of an iron maiden. The chorus is a killer one, "Tales of macabre-cabre-bre.....". The lyrics are perfect, lines like "Few are willing to do my killing" or "Hades assassin - a killer supreme". This album is killing me!

That's where Strappado end. This is an album that I truly recommend for the fans of Hellhammer, early Death and Mantas and Autopsy. Too heavy and not-so-fast to be mixed with the brazilian ones. If I just could, I'd give a 666 points for this one. This is what perfect album sounds.

I love a simple riff when it’s played with enough heart/passion/balls to make it segue into something infinitely more interesting. There’s no other way of attributing the success of a band like Motörhead, from whom Slaughter borrow greatly.

The “Strappado” album as I like to call it has some killing songs which all tend to share the same riff or two or three over its half hour running time. “Nocturnal Hell” segues into “F.O.D.” with what seems like little regard for the new track; it sounds identical. I don’t mind though; put it on in the background; certain parts grab you by the coat-tails and although the album is so dated, there is no doubting the intensity of it. There’s really nothing here we haven’t heard executed better elsewhere, but the familiarity of it all is reassuring. That, and I actually looked up the meaning of the word in the dictionary: torture by being hung from a rope, pulled up and dropped the length of the rope. This album's a whole lot more fun than that. I haven't used the word fun until now, that's the best word for this album.

I like “Strappado”; I wasn’t around back in 1986 when it was released, but I know for sure that if a band can believe enough in the most basic chord progression, they can make their listeners believe in it too. “Make way for the Incinerator!” Check out in particular “Disintigrator/Incinerator”, “Tortured Souls”, “One Foot In the Grave” and “Strappado”.

This Slaughter plays extreme thrash, in the vein of many of the South American extreme thrash bands like Sarcofago and the Chilean Pentagram (but predating them). With a punk-influence, it's raw and primitive as fuck noisy thrash.

What makes Slaughter so special is the animo with which they made their uncompromising speed-assault. When Slaughter plays, both they and the audience are having fun. Each song is recognizable simply because of a signature riff, or the lyrics. "Make way for the INCINERATORR!!" or the riffs for Tyrant of Hell. "TALES of THE maCAbre" with that typical vocal-line is my personal favorite, although it's the slowest song on here.

When you get the Nuclear Blast cd-version with the Live Toronto show (a whopping 12 bonustracks!), and I do recommend you do, you can hear Slaughter in action live. The sound isn't great (sometimes part of the vocals get a bit drowned out) but overall it's pretty decent. The main thing is the crowd-interaction; sillyness galore. Slaughter also performs some tracks not on the original album, among which a Venom and a Hellhammer cover (fitting their sound perfectly). If you're a fan of Slaughter, and you see the Nuclear Blast version cheap, it's IMO worth it to get if you don't got the live tracks on your version.

Slaughter isn't about a refined sound, but more about fun raw music.