Slaughtered Priest - World Wide War (2009)

It's amazing the difference a single year can make in plotting the course of a metal band. Just one year prior, Greeks Slaughtered Priest had released a laughable if forgettable effort of blackened punk thrash called Eternal Goat Reign, with much of the trivial and smug perversity such a title would imply. But here we are, standing in the ashes with World Wide War, an effort that totally trumps its predecessor in composition, musical ability and seriousness. Now, I'm not saying they've lost their sense of humor here. Just take a glance at the hideous cover art, for example. But World Wide War is seasoned, voracious black/thrash of the highest order, exercising a sheer obeisance to the power of lightning riffing redolent of influences as wide as Venom, Kreator and Aura Noir.

First, the air raid siren. And then the excitement, as "W.C. (World's Coffin)" erupts into a series of nuclear riffs that leave most of their competition in this field in the fucking dust. Seriously, the guitar tone here is amazing, thin but coiled and potent like a salvo of poisonous serpents. The black rasp of the Ungod has been honed to perfection, with a clear influence from Mille Petrozza or the older Sodom albums, and the backing gang shouts are well timed without inhibiting the lethal momentum. There is not a single guitar riff in this whole song that DOESN'T make me want to kick the shit out of someone, and about the only thing working against it might be the duration (over 7 minutes), which might have been trimmed down about 60 seconds for good measure. Fortunately, they don't stretch their luck with the further tracks, which in general range from around 4-5 minutes, and thoroughly continue the fun, precision riffing. Favorites include the sleazy speed metal of "Lightnings of Vengeance", the repulsive "Rise Against Humanity" and the thundering "Unholy War".

There are, on occasion, songs in which the simpler, punk fueled chords don't really match the more intense lickage surrounding them, namely the band's namesake "Slaughtered Priest", but here the duo attempts to at least compensate with a bit of variation. "Proud to Be a Sinner" is another that I wasn't entirely sold on, with some pretty bland guitar patterns set to a banal blasted sequence. The lyrics are also, in general, pretty pedestrian (not that I expected more). However, I'd say that of the 40 minutes of play length, you're getting a good 28 which will fuel your lust for denim jackets, patches, whiskey, spikes and sluts, and there's no question in my mind that this one of the more positive evolutions I've heard in all Hellenic extremity. Not a perfect album, but a great one. Whether you're into Witchery, Impaled Nazarene, Aura Noir, Bewitched, Audiopain or any sort of hybrid of the two styles, you'll want to experience this loudly, break a few glass bottles and dance mockingly about the radioactive wastes while you wait to be devoured by mutant cockroaches. Fun, fun, and not a bad way to go.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (fear my bleeding war-hell)

http://slaughteredpriest.webs.com/index.htm

Slaughtered Priest - Eternal Goat Reign (2008)

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.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (drinking their wormy sanctification)

http://slaughteredpriest.webs.com/index.htm