Slaughter Messiah - Deathlike Invasion

SLAUGHTER MESSIAH - Deathlike Invasion (SABBATH's FIRE - MC 2011)

I remember that in the late 90’s I was quite big fan of Enthroned, who for sure were one of the most vicious and fast black metal bands around at that time. I loved their debut LP “Prophecies of Pagan Fire” especially, but also “Towards the Skullthrone of Satan” and “Regie Sathanas” were just killer. I was also quite into the band’s image and ideology, so definitely Enthroned was one of my biggest influences at that time. But some of their later albums were not that good anymore, so in the 00’s I slowly started losing interest in the band, the music became more and more infantile and boring... I still have all their albums on vinyl, also those from the early 00’s, but they’re not my favourite releases for sure. Then in 2006 I was quite shocked hearing that Sabathan left the band – it was unexpected, as I considered him to be the main force of Enthroned, and I couldn’t imagine the band without the raspy throat and small guy with big, red bass guitar behind the mic. I still don’t know why he left Enthroned… Anyway, later on Enthroned released “XES Haereticum” – the first album without Sabathan – and it turned out to be really good and somehow refreshed the band’s sound and style; something similar, but in way greater scale, happened to Marduk for instance (whose all LPs with Mortus are fantastic and way better than most of the LPs from the Legion era). Time goes by, after “XES Haereticum” Enthroned released more albums, but I lost the interest once more, I even stopped buying their albums, but one day I was wondering what the hell happened to Sabathan, what he is up nowadays (besides acting in some porn hehe)… and that day I discovered Slaughter Messiah. He joined the band quite recently, in 2011, but already recorded two demos with them… and I was lucky to get the second demo cassette, “Deathlike Invasion” from 2012.

This demo was released by Sabbath’s Fire Records, limited to 350 hand numbered copies, and damn, I must say I like this stuff a lot! It brings three songs plus a cover – a surprising choice of Terrorizer’s “Dead Shall Rise”. And I mean surprising, because musically Slaughter Messiah performs an utterly obscure, old school blackened thrash metal, so one would maybe expect them to cover Sodom, early Slayer or Hellhammer. Anyway, the music is really awesome. There are obviously some resemblances to some Enthroned tunes – not only because of the so characteristic voice of Sabathan, but also because such song as “Slaughter Messiah” reminds me Enthroned from such their songs as “Satan Never Sleeps”. There’s similar rhythm, some similar ideas and more so, the atmosphere of the music is equally evil and obscure. But Slaughter Messiah has something more to offer… they’re just killer old styled thrash / black metal band with some awesome riffs and great songs. I bet not everyone will like Sabathan’s vocals… and well, I also have heard some better performances from him, his voice is very shrieking and it is the same as with Abbath for instance: not everyone will like it, but who cares... I don’t care, I like the guy anyway. All in all his voice fits the music perfectly and I can assure you that the whole material from Slaughter Messiah is vicious, evil and aggressive as hell. “Slaughter Messiah”, “New Wave of Belgian Heavy Metal” and “Visual Aggression” are all fine tracks; I cannot even pick up my favourite, but it is probably “Slaughter Messiah”, as I love the riffing in it and that great fast, thrashing tempo. But also “New Wave of Belgian Heavy Metal” is awesome with its totally archaic music. And I can assure you that if you’re into Aura Noir or Nocturnal Breed - and obviously also into the classic thrash / black / death metal scene -  then you’ll also love these Belgian maniacs. I am very excited about their band and I must say that I can’t wait to hear some more music from them; which probably will be a full length album. Ha, hell awaits!

Standout track: “Slaughter Messiah”

Final rate: 80/100