Strappado Original Mix

カナダ・トロント出身スラッシュ・メタル・バンド、SLAUGHTERが1987年に発表したデビュー・アルバムにして、後のデス・メタル誕生にも影響を与えたと語られるカルト的名盤。1984年に結成されたDave Hewson(Vo/G)、Terry Sadler(Vo/B)、Ron Summers(Dr)のトリオが放つサウンドは、当時のスラッシュ・メタルの中でもひときわ荒々しく、パンク的衝動と極端なスピード感を併せ持つ強烈なもの。雷鳴のような勢いで突き進むタイトル曲「Strappado」、ほとんどハードコア・パンクの感触を帯びた「F.O.D. (Fuck Of Death)」、邪悪なムードが漂う「Nocturnal Hell」など、荒削りながら凶暴なエネルギーに満ちた楽曲が並び、当時のアンダーグラウンド・シーンに強烈なインパクトを残した。粗削りな演奏とダーティーなサウンドはまさに初期スラッシュの極北とも言えるもので、後のデス・メタルへとつながる過激さをすでに内包している点も興味深い。今回の再発盤には当時のオリジナル・ミックスに加え、未編集のラフ・ミックス音源も多数収録されており、楽曲の生々しい制作過程やバンドの荒々しい初期衝動をよりダイレクトに体感できる内容となっている。80年代エクストリーム・メタル史における重要作として再評価が進む一枚で、地下スラッシュや初期デス・メタルを好むリスナーならぜひ押さえておきたい歴史的作品と言える。

Inattentive consumers picking up this album because they confuse it as being by the testicularly challenged American glam rockers will be in for quite a surprise. This is the Canadian band named Slaughter, and their lone 1987 album, Strappado (named after a medieval torture tactic that had victims suspended by their hands, while these were tied behind their backs), contained improbably raw blackened thrash reminiscent of the earliest works of Voivod or, say, Sepultura. In other words, there are no hair products in sight! Instead, Strappado's crusty brand of gutter thrash pushes past boundaries of musical decency in the same brusque fashion as Motorhead and then Venom before them. The hysterically frantic "Disintegrator/Incinerator" opens proceedings with all the subtlety of an electric lawnmower to the head, but the rest of side A is curiously dominated by uniformly slower -- though, for the most part, no less entertaining -- moshers like "Nocturnal Hell," "Tortured Souls," and "The Curse." Side B, by comparison, is full steam ahead; rapid-fire numbers like the title track, "Maim to Please," and "Tyrant of Hell" unleash machine-gun warfare before the concluding "Tales of the Macabre" finally decelerates the head-banging down again. Minimal production renders all of the above even more unpalatable for any but the most serious of metalheads, and it helps if you're old enough to remember the far simpler aesthetic expectations of the '80s -- where sheer savage fun often took precedence over perfect execution. Otherwise, you'll think Slaughter are just a bunch of hopeless amateurs. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia