Slaughter was mentioned in the worldwide thrash metal post earlier on. I truly believe this band to be the best band to come out of Canada. Slaughter was immensely influential on the burgeoning death metal scene in the mid 1980's and are often considered along with Death and Morbid Angel to be early pioneers in the style. Slaughter's own influences come from the usual suspects, bands like Black Sabbath, Celtic Frost, and hardcore bands of the time. Indeed, Slaughter's early music could be described as Black Sabbath playing punk music. Slaughter frequently utilized two vocalists, a higher pitched vocalist who shouted and a lower-pitched pre-death metal style vocalist.The band's sound evolved significantly since their earliest recordings. I received the Tortured Souls box set for Christmas 2007 which features many of their recordings other than their only full length album. It includes early demos and live recordings that are extremely rare and hard to find. The early demos display a band that has not found its sound yet. The songs are fairly short, immature-sounding, and very much on the punk side of things. Nevertheless, there are occasional moments that show the potential the band had of becoming a creative force in metal. The early demos are mostly fascinating to listen to, to hear a band in its earliest stages making its first recordings. If this was all that it was though, it would not have been worth checking out. Demos can be interesting, but seldomly are as good as the full length albums. It is clear that the band was attempting some Celtic Frost/Hellhammer-style guitar tone but was not fully successful. The vocals are much more in a sneering punk style than their later vocals.
As the band's proficiency at their instruments increased, so too did the quality of their music. The riffs were not as simple, the instruments were layered more, guitar solos were present, and the vocals began to sound better. The band also began incorporating elements from more extreme styles of metal, such as thrash metal into its music. The songs they previously recorded were often re-recorded with an improved sound quality and possibly additional instrumentation and lyrics. The band was beginning to sound like it would on its first full length album. Also included on this box set are some recorded rehearsals which display the band's odd sense of humor and some live shows from around the time period of their only full length to be released, Strappado. These additional recordings further show the band evolving.
STRAPPADO
The songs on the first full length album were, for the most part, works in progress from the band's demo days. The songs on the album were fully fleshed out featuring the guitar tone the band had been striving for all this time. The songs were typically short, fast, and aggressive. The band had finally created its masterpiece. Strappado is well-regarded in the metal scene as an early death/thrash metal album, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, the band would never record another full length album.
Unreleased Material After Strappado
The best part about the boxed set was the inclusion of the band's final album, which was never actually released. The band had changed its name to Strappado after their first album to avoid confusion with the American hair band Slaughter, but they still released a few songs on demos as Slaughter. The unreleased album was to be called Fatal Judgment and featured re-recorded versions of songs from the band's final demos, but it was never released after Strappado broke up. The album featured more of a shift in genres to thrash metal exclusively and lyrically dealt with more science fiction themes, including a song about the eponymous Alien from the movie series. The band still had potential to be a force in the metal scene, unfortunately at that point grunge had taken over and there was not much of a metal scene left. The band called it quits, reuniting once to perform a song on a Celtic Frost tribute album, but were basically done. Oh, what might have been.
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