Exhorder - Discography
This is the band that practicly invented the groove metal sound with their first album,"Slaughter In The Vatican"...Pantera ripped of the band's music,after they turned from glam,but you will probably notice this anyway.These two albums are a must-have for any thrash/post-thrash fan.Here's a review for "The Law" :
"Their debut, Slaughter In Vatican, was very thrash for 1990. It was released in a period of general crises in thrash metal and this The Law shows some of the viruses that would have caused the death of thrash metal. The most obvious and famous one is groove. It�s so evident and clear to anyone if you listen to this album. Anyways, I must admit that I like this album much more than the other ones that featured these damaging influences.
What really blows my mind is the guitars tune. Already in their debut there was a truly pounding guitars sound but here is almost unbelievable. If you remember the Exodus sound in that period, here we can find that tune but here it�s far more scratchy and devastating with plenty of treble distortions on the amplifiers. The songs are a good bland of fastest parts with some down tempo and groove mid paced parts; the hyper clear production exalts all the instruments, transforming the guitars sound in an impenetrable wall.
The drums are clear cut but not pounding, creating a prefect musical detachment from the hyper artificial guitars. The only thing that seems a bit triggered is the bass drum that sounds so similar to groups like Heathen and Overkill in that period. One of the fastest tracks here is �Unforgiven� with plenty of sudden restarts under the sign of fast bass drums triplets and up tempo. The opener shows also some arpeggios and the classic faster mid paced riffs that are so common in this genre.
The violence level is always high, thanks also to fast bass drums of �I Am The Cross�. �Unborn Again� is the most progressive tracks of the album because it shows some funky bass parts and different guitars. The vocals are a violent, pissed off copy of the ones by Anselmo and all the songs, generally, are very similar to the Pantera compositions for style and attitude. Also some groove tempo parts are very similar but here everything is far heavier.
Really, I�m not able to describe the damned guitars tone, and reaching the end of this album could be very dangerous for your ears, or better, for your mental sanity. It�s like being close to a continue chainsaw that tries to cut a door made of metal. Obviously, the thrash metal influences here are far less present and audible than on their debut and I can describe this album �as if Pantera were thrasher and with more balls�. There is also an excellent cover of �Into The Void� by Black Sabbath and, with these sounds, it�s even more doom and heavy.
At the end, I feel a bit hesitant which category of listeners I can recommend this album to. There are several fast parts but it�s necessary you to forget a bit the thrash metal to jump into the groove genre. You all know how much I hate groove but if it�s well filtered through violence and a bunch of damned heavy and restless riffs, there are no problems at all. Just avoid listening to it if you already have the headache that day."(review from metal-arhives.com)
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