Band:	Slower
Album:	Slower
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	January 26, 2024
A review by:	Nejde

01. War Ensemble [Slayer cover]
02. The Antichrist [Slayer cover]
03. Blood Red [Slayer cover]
04. Dead Skin Mask [Slayer cover]
05. South Of Heaven [Slayer cover]

If you like Slayer but wished that they played slower, then look no further, because Slower are here to play Slayer slower on their debut Slower.

So who's behind Slower, you might wonder? Well, you can call this yet another supergroup of renowned musicians from other famous bands. The idea started when Bob Balch of Fu Manchu was teaching a student how to play "South Of Heaven", but because the student was a beginner he slowed it down to make it easier to play. He tuned it down to B standard and added drums, and thought it sounded cool enough to make a doom record out of it. The idea was then pitched to Steven Hanford of punk band Poison Idea, but sadly he passed away during the pandemic and the project was shelved until Esben Willems, drummer of Monolord, was looking for musical collaborations. So they started sharing tracks while looking for other musicians interested in joining the project. This ultimately led to a line-up also consisting of Peder Bergstrand of Lowrider and Scott Reeder of Kyuss on bass, and Amy Barrysmith of Year Of The Cobra and Laura Pleasants of Kylesa sharing vocal duties.

The concocted album consists of five songs, and looking at Slayer's massive discography, I can only imagine how hard it must've been to pick out only five of them. Eventually they ended up with three songs from Seasons In The Abyss, one from the debut Show No Mercy, and the title track from South Of Heaven. So unfortunately we don't get any doom interpretations from Reign In Blood here. Still, every song is easily recognizable even though slowed down to a sludgy, murky doom tempo with a lot of fuzzy guitar, heavy bass and eerie female vocals.

The album kicks off with an almost 11-minute rendition of "War Ensemble", undoubtedly one of Slayer's most famous songs. The original version is a ferocious piece of ultra-fast thrash metal, but you will still instantly recognize the riff even as it's going at half speed. After about a minute Amy Barrysmith comes in, delivering some excellent dragged-out ghostly vocals that fit exceptionally well with the war-themed lyrics. Next up is "The Antichrist" from the debut album Show No Mercy. This sub-3-minute song is stretched out to over 8 minutes, and while the original, although short in length, has a 50-second solo, here it's almost 2.5 minutes long, delivering the most atmospheric part of the album. The third track is the second one from Seasons In The Abyss, "Blood Red", which also is stretched out to over twice its length. Although good, this is the least memorable song of the album, and I wouldn't mind if they had switched it with a song from Reign In Blood, preferably "Angel Of Death" or "Criminally Insane", which I think would've fit perfectly in the doom mould.

"Dead Skin Mask", the third and final track from Seasons..., is actually less than a minute longer than the original, simply because it's already one of Slayer's slower songs. The difference here is that Slower's version feels suffocating in a way the original doesn't, thanks to the downtuning of the guitar. The album ends with the song that started it all, "South Of Heaven". This is the only track featuring Laura Pleasants on vocals and Scott Reeder on bass; Pleasants doesn't sound as ghostly as Barrysmith does, and the guitar is less fuzzy, making this song sound a bit lighter than the rest of them album.

What Slower have done here is to take 20 minutes of Slayer and turned into 40 minutes of fuzzy doom. I dare to say that the idea to slow down Slayer is a stroke of pure genius, and I'm quite surprised that no one thought of this before. One thing that also becomes obvious when listening to Slower is how well fitted the lyrics are with the slow, crushing doom sound. It's a match made in heaven, excuse me, I meant hell of course. Another fun thing to do when listening to this album is comparing the different versions, listening to the originals and covers back to back, spotting both the differences and similarities.

Overall this is a very enjoyable album, and Balch has said that they hopefully can do another album in the near future, which I very much am looking forward to. So Bob, if you read this, give us some doomy fuzziness from Reign In Blood next, thanks.