Register Forgot login?

© 2002-2024
Encyclopaedia Metallum

Privacy Policy

Slaughtered Priest > Eternal Goat Reign > Reviews
Slaughtered Priest - Eternal Goat Reign

Girls, guts, goats, glory - 60%

autothrall, September 17th, 2011

Being about the 16 billionth band to come along and populate their lyrics and song titles with images of nuns, whores, goats and inverted pentagrams, I readily admit that I went into Eternal Goat Reign with zero expectations other than hearing ANOTHER knockoff of the 1st wave black metal forefathers Venom, Bathory and so forth. It was a somewhat accurate assumption, because the Greeks certainly sound a lot like Quorthon's first three black/thrash outings with a healthy portion of Slayer styled riffing straight from the hub of the 80s. That said, though, Slaughtered Priest flavor the style with a lot of punkish fervor that feels like a less hyperactive alternative to Impaled Nazarene, and the croaking black vocals and thicker, more contemporary guitar tone definitely earn them a few points.

The album opens with a 93 second intro called "Bestial Nun Sluts", with smutty samples of the expected goat-fucking merged into a somber, backing synthesizer atmosphere with plenty of pornographic pleasure and pain. If this was supposed to sound seductive or perverse, I'm afraid it failed, since the goats sound too mechanical and methodic, as do many of the female voices, and by the time the fucking chainsaw arrives, you are simply not going to take anything seriously for the rest of the album. It was cool when Razor did it, folks, but it's grown a little tired. Fortunate then that once Slaughtered Priest starts rocking, they at least come off like a good time with the snaking, evil Slayer-ific guitars in the title track. There are a handful of other fun bits like "Antihumanity" and "Goat Hammer" which offer a balance of growls, ridiculous rasps and tight if familiar patterns of straight power chords, but the riffs themselves are about 50% on fire, and then 50% derivative to the bone.

Of course, because sodomized Sisters, bleating goats and chainsaw butchery are not comical enough to end this little chapter of obscurity, they close out Eternal Goat Reign with another synthesizer/sample coupling, this time of a baby (presumably the 'Little Jesus' in the "Infernal Tears of Little Jesus") whining along to more bleating goats, then a scream, then a crash...and darkness. Ultimately, Slaughtered Priest are pretty harmless, unless you happen to belong to the Clergy, and might succumb to the intended shock value. Their speedier, sinister licks are far more entertaining than the more generic punk/black rhythms, but the vocals and lyrics are at least minimally amusing, even if they're not really played for laughs. At best this is like a brash younger brother for Aura Noir. The thing is, well...it's just been done before, and too many times, and Eternal Goat Reign just doesn't have the riff-set or some other edge to cut loose from the flock.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

I'll keep burning your cross! - 88%

MegaHassan, May 3rd, 2009

Taking influence from early Venom, Hellhammer, Bathory and Slayer (in their more straight-forward thrash moments), Slaughtered Priest bring to you “Eternal Goat Reign”.

Hellhammer derived circular black/thrash riffs, gurgling basslines, surprisingly tight drumming and awfully awesome vocals are just some of the main features of this band's debut album. Just like early Bathory and Venom, you can spot some punk influences here as well, mainly in the upbeat 'happy' drumming style. The blackened thrash riffs make up most of the guitar work here as there are no solos, but the riffs at times morph into full fledged black metal riffs with just a shade of thrash in them, and other times they take on a slow, somewhat groove metal appearance. The filthy Celtic Frost inspired guitar tone however gives the music an atmosphere of malevolence at all times. Vocals are here in the form of low death growls and thin - but not ultra high-pitched - black metal shouts.

There are six songs here from the total of eight tracks, the other two just being an intro and an outro. The song titles here are as awesome as the songs themselves, despite the blatant cheesiness. Despite the fact that both thrash metal and black metal are considered to be extremely restrictive genres, the music here never gets boring and feels peculiarly fresh throughout. Overall, this is a good first album for these Greek black metal thrashers and I look forward to hearing more original material from them!

(originally written for archaic-magazine.com)