Slaughterday – Nightmare Vortex
Napalm Tom G. Warrior, Chris Reifert, and Peter Tägtgren into a single liquefied pile of pungent flesh, freeze it in carbonite, then electrify and unleash the result in Deutschland, and you will create a monster capable of twisting the output of all three musicians into new devilry. And while the body parts of this particular Death Metal beast have been displayed time and time again, the sum of this band’s riffs brought together here feels fresh. Germany’s Slaughterday have the gumption (and instinct) to take T. Gabriel Fischer’s get-up-and-say-Hey! vox, back it with tested-and-true Oakland CA death/doom found in the collection of every serial killer, and inject the mishmash with a Swedish melodic sensibility cultivated from the early ’90s to present. In so doing, Slaughterday have concocted a first full-length that feels both comfortably familiar and energetic. Metal’s characteristic of reliving what has already been continues to be its greatest asset and greatest Achille’s heel, and most bands spend their entire careers trying to gingerly traverse the balance between homage and plagiarism; for Nightmare Vortex at least, Slaughterday have tightroped across the dam between the two traits by taking the best the aforementioned triumvirate has to offer, while hacking enough chops into OSDM to keep the ’80s/’90s stale at bay. This is cheap-beer-drinking DM with a smidgen of class, courtesy Nik Godgrinder’s (heh) epic leadwork that has (heh heh) emotion – yep, go back and read that word again – emotion beyond the expected hate, giving color to the boilerplate metal-of-death that will be at home in any gravedigger’s 25-year-old Sony Walkman (cassette of course). Now, now, do not worry that ‘thar-be-whining’ here, fellow cemetery fiends; track titles ‘Addicted to the Grave’ and ‘Cult of the Dreaming Dead’ (to name but two) attest to Slaughterday’s adherence to true Death Metal ingredients. These Germans have proven with Nightmare Vortex that you can in fact ‘keep it simple, stupid’ on the E/A/D/G strings, while making memorable, melodic zombie-porn muzak on the B and high E’s. Get ready for what you already love, but can now enjoy without playing Mental Funeral, To Mega Therion and Penetralia all at the same time. -Jim
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