No excess fat – 80%
we hope you die, April 20th, 2020
Of all the old school revivalist trends of the last decade, the return to pre-1990 blackened thrash metal has to be one of the most successful. Not only in pulling black metal back from the brink of disappearing completely up its own arsehole, but also by reiterating the true roots of black metal it brings back into the fold in relation to its sister genres. This may not be the most original or innovative of releases, but there is always something to be learned from returning to first principles, especially when a genre reaches middle age, and various midlife crises abound.
Slaughtbbath are one of the bigger acts to come out of Chile in recent years. Their debut LP ‘Hail to Fire’ released back in 2013 is a tight barrage of old school blackened thrash that perfectly exemplifies the ‘less is more’ philosophy. This takes us right back to Bathory around the ‘Under the Sign of the Black Mark’ and ‘Blood Fire Death’ era. Hyper charged thrash riffs blast past the listener one after another, constructed of the most basic atonal chord progressions. The guitar tone is pretty meaty for metal that walks on the blacker side of thrash, but this suits Slaugthbbath’s stripped down approach to this style.
Drums stick to a near constant blast-beat, occasionally switching the tempo up and down at odd intervals which affords the guitars a layer of complexity despite their form remaining constant. The vocals stick to the mid-range, with plenty of lyrics perfectly audible; and there are many stanzas with a tight, rhythmic delivery. Some rip past at the same pace as the rest of the music, others soar above the frantic tempos lingering for longer. Again, what soloing is present is minimal yet frantic. There is no time to explore any melodic flair or key progressions. They simply jump out of the cacophony for a few brief bars before falling back into the deluge. All this adds to the chaotic, warlike feel to this music, but there is structure beneath the carnage.
‘Hail to Fire’ manages to maintain this level of speed and intensity throughout without it becoming tiresome by the end of the album. The trick to this is their approach to constructing each track. We can criticise them for bringing nothing new to the table in terms of innovation, but there is much to learn from this LP. Everything is so tightly strung that there is little room for manoeuvre. All the other elements are swept along by riffs with more percussive qualities than tonal. Combine that with a near relentless skin bashing and anything that would deviate too far from this backbone would transform this from a delicately balanced exercise in chaos into a complete mess. The fact that this intensity is maintained means that Slaughtbbath really don’t need to be too elaborate when it comes to adding other elements or developing these tracks beyond these basic components. They get more out a simple tempo change or merely dropping out the shredding and letting a chord ring precisely because it is in such stark contrast to what came before.
This album reasserts first principles within a broadly black metal framework. It reachs back to old school thrash as a way to articulate this. In doing so, Slaughtbbath strip away all the excess fat from this style to create a tight, razor sharp album with absolutely no wasted space.
Originally published at Hate Meditations
rafazardly 