Band:	Satanic Slaughter
Album:	Satanic Slaughter
Style:	Black metal, Death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	January 1995

01. Immortal Death
02. Forever I Burn
03. Dark Ritual
04. Into The Catacombs
05. Breath Of The Serpent That Rules The Cold World
06. On Black Wings
07. Nocturnal Presence
08. Legion Of Hades
09. Divine Exorcism
10. I'll Await My Lord
11. Embraced By Darkness
12. Domine Lucipheros

Every once and a while, I get a sudden, almost uncontrollable craving for some simple, violent as all hell, childish and straightforward extreme metal that just grabs me by the balls and keeps hammering me without mercy until the craving is gone and I'm back to my usual musical repertoire. So, having burned through my usual bands used in these emergencies, I was strolling around and stumbled upon this one. You can imagine my reaction when I saw a band called Satanic Slaughter with a debut album of the same name. "This is it", I said, thinking it would satisfy my urge and give me a boner for the next thirty minutes. Well, not only did it not give me a boner, but it just might have made me permanently impotent.

Alright, I exaggerate. I'm too much of a hormone-crazed teen for anything to make me permanently impotent, but this album sure gave it a good try. We're looking at a black/thrash hybrid here, folks, with the low-fi production and general mood of black and the riff-based violence and shenanigans of thrash. And, well, there isn't really a lot more to say here. Twelve pretty short tracks, only one of which breaks the four minute mark, all of them pounding at full speed with no breaks applied. Full-on black/thrash assault that doesn't strive nor pretend to be anything other than a couple of guys venting their accumulated anger through music. Violent, nasty, and pissed as a motherfucker would be the key phrases to describe the album.

If only the guys from the band were as good at writing music as they are at getting pissed... In that department, Satanic Slaughter is a wondrous exercise in total mediocrity. An album that is neither good enough to be listened to more than a handful of times, nor one with any extremely obvious flaws that can seriously hamper the listening experience. It completely lacks any truly awe-inspiring moments, remaining instead focused on delivering music of fairly equal quality throughout its entire length. As tracks are all quite short, lots of them even under two minutes, none waste time with intros, build-ups and such, hammering from the very start to the end. Tempo and dynamic changes are frequently there, but very few of those actually manage to do something for the track, and instead just serve to switch from one mediocre riff to another.

Satanic Slaughter has the misfortune of being completely in the gray area. You won't remember it for being particularly satisfying, just as you won't remember it for sucking. You just won't remember it. It's the classic example of an album you listen to a few times, then get rid of. At least with outright shitty albums you get a laugh and something to remember them by, even if it's just a new comparison in the vein of: "As shitty as (insert album name)". And, well, albums that can be completely ignored and forgotten just may be the worst of all...