SLAUGHTERDAY
Ravenous EP
FDA Rekotz (2014)
Rating: 8/10
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I really enjoyed the gore-crusted barrage of Slaughterday’s 2013 debut Nightmare Vortex, so it’s nice to relive the nightmare with this four-track EP from the German duo.
As expected, this is more of the same; horrifying, blood-soaked putridness that combines lashings of horrifying doom-laden riffage with a Swedish twist. It’s nothing new but boy do us disciples of death metal revel in such an orgy of lust, leeches and languid prose.
And what better way to experience such grim cares than via the opening bludgeoning that is ‘Ravenous’, a timely reminder to us all that such rancid death metal has not grown too long in the tooth and can still have a snap in its jaws. What works so well here is the band’s ability to fuse a real, grotty slower segment with maniacal speed. It’s Autopsy at one point, then The Ravenous the next, and of course a thrashing piece of Swedish grit. It’s all so unkempt, loose, corrupt and as cloying as a clot recently coughed up by vocalist Bernd Reiners.
German metal has never sounded so squalid, echoing around its own filth chamber with those sordid solos, volatile riffs of phlegm and percussion wrenched straight from the abattoir. Hell, the band has even enlisted the talents of Swedish artist Jan Pysander Whitney for the cover. And with ‘Crawling In Secrecy’ the band once again dons its Swedish armband of honour as the droning chords sweep through the soul like a deadly bacteria and Reiners beams with derangement of cold catacombs.
‘Abyss Of Nameless Fear’ boasts more of an apocalyptic nature – this time the combo opts for a thrashier approach to unleash the demons – and with a cover of Acheron’s ‘Ave Satanas’ tying up the loose ends in equally primal fashion, Slaughterday’s latest clump of matted hair, congealed bone and frayed sinew is another we must worship or risk succumbing to the armies of the dead who have been summoned via Reiner’s belching.
For those of you who like that deathly, dirge-like guitar tone and cannot turn a blind, bloodshot eye to those horizons of gore are no doubt going to don a butcher’s apron and armed with cleaver take to the dungeon and dissect this fly-ridden globule of gore. I can’t wait for the next full-length instalment from a band that just grows on me the more and more I spin their hymns of death. If you’ve not heard Slaughterday then it’s time to join the ceremony.
Neil Arnold
