Customer Reviews

Strappado

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Slaughter's Strappado is one of early thrash metal's finest achievements, even if the songs weren't top-notch mastered. The songs are tight and fast and though the lyrics aren't the most in-depth, they are singable and catchy. I own this and love it! I would recommend this to any fan of thrash metal. I just wish it was remastered at some point.

I'm all for making classic material originally lost to time available once again through reissues, but one thing I don't like is when they tamper with an album's original format in any way. When I hear an old recording, I want to hear it the way it sounded when it was first released or recorded.

In the case of Slaughter's "Strappado," even the original Canadian import CD pressing on Fringe/Diabolic Force (which is now highly collectible and that I've seen easily go for over $100 on eBay) and subsequent reissues unfortunately all have the album's original track order switched around.

"Strappado" was originally a nine song LP (just over 23 minutes in length) issued in 1987 by Diabolic Force, with the following track order:

SIDE A:

1. Strappado (1:29)

2. the Curse (1:45)

3. Disintegrator (1:00)

4. Incinerator (2:58)

5. Parasites (2:04)

SIDE B:

1. F.O.D. (F*** of Death) (3:54)

2. Tortured Souls (2:51)

3. Nocturnal Hell (3:28)

4. Tales of the Macabre (4:05)

...The only other initial format choice available at the time was on cassette, to which one bonus track was added, the classic "Maim to Please."

What I have done, and I recommend other purists do, is to burn your CD of the album onto a blank CD-r, in the LP's original running order, with the bonus tracks tacked on at the end. Since doing that, I have rediscovered this lost masterpiece all over again.

The story starts in 1984, when three outcasts from Scarborough, Ontario (where fellow speed metallers Sacrifice also hailed from) formed a band with the intention of being the fastest, sickest and heaviest amalgamation of contemporary extreme metal sounds that was around at the time. After releasing a few demos, the band entered a basement studio in Toronto (Futuresound; where Sacrifice had cut their debut LP just months prior) on a cold day in early February 1986 and committed their audio deathwish to tape all in the course of that one day. So much for prolonged studio time! I'm sure that many even extreme metal bands have labored months at a time holed up in the studio, and emerged with something they only wish could approach a tenth of the heaviness found on "Strappado."

1986 was the watershed year for early extreme metal, with bands such as Michigan's Repulsion, Florida's Death, Sweden's Bathory and Brazil's Sepultura all pushing the previous known sound barriers to unforeseen extremes in the form of the fastest, sickest and most brutal music around at the time.

In their own little corner of the world, Slaughter established themselves as another one of the brightest hopefuls with this amazing recording. You can hear the Discharge punk influence in these tracks, but also a heavy contemporary death metal influence that was all their own. The guitar sound, the ripping high speed riffing, the dual vocalists, one high and one low, and last but not least the near blast-beat style of the drums... it's all here. These guys were brilliant and it was all captured onto tape on that one fateful day.

All in all, absolutely mandatory for anyone wishing to sample a piece of lost extreme music history or anyone wishing to bang their head to some of the heaviest early death metal of all time. Only the highest possible recommendations come for this release.

Slaughter(not the gay hair-metal band)released this album in 1986. I think it was recorded in a single day! It possesses some of the most brutal chainsaw riffs I've ever heard, and for 1986, this was UNBELIEVABLY fast & heavy. Listen to songs like "disintegrator" and "death dealer", NOBODY was this fast & brutal 22 + years ago. The album loses a star for pretty crappy vocals and really cheesy lyrics("prepare yourself for torture, prepare yourself for screams/ this ain't no bloody story, ain't no f-ing dream", "howl of the witch, flight of the bat/ howling from hell, like a screaming cat"), but if you're a death metal maniac, you need this album...this is where it all TRULY began...