Exhorder
Slaughter In The Vatican

THE REVIEW

This is the first album by Exhorder, a rather unlucky American band.

The story is brief: in 1988, Exhorder released their second demo titled "Slaughter In The Vatican," containing 7 songs that would later appear on this album (essentially all except for "The Tragic Period"). This demo made its way around the world thanks to tape-trading, and Exhorder became one of the most famous bands among the underground maniacs of the time. The uniqueness of this demo was the band's style, very close to the thrash/death of the era, but featuring then-new elements that would later become the hallmark of post thrash.

These elements were the heavy, bone-crushing, and pure mosh-pit rhythms, and the angry and "hoarse" vocals. Thus, RoadRunner signed them, and in 1990, Exhorder released this debut album. At the same time, in 1990, another American band released their fifth album, "Cowboys From Hell" by Pantera. In this album, Pantera's classic metal roots were still present, but they had also added the elements that characterized Exhorder, so much so that in the "Cowboys From Hell" booklet, they even thanked them. This is how post thrash was born, which is called by the majority "Pantera-style thrash," but in reality, it was created by Exhorder. Pantera were heavily promoted by their label, enjoying much more powerful promotion than Exhorder (and of course, Pantera was signed to a major label, and RoadRunner was still a medium-sized metal label). Thanks to this promotion, Pantera took Exhorder's place, becoming, in the eyes of most people, seen as the inventors of a new way to make metal. And Exhorder got royally screwed, probably titling a song "Anal Lust" brought them bad luck.

The line-up at the time of this album consisted of Vinnie LaBella (guitar), Chris Nail (drums), Kyle Thomas (vocals), and Jay Ceravolo (guitar). They didn't have a bassist, and the bass parts were recorded by the two guitarists. As stated above, the album includes 8 songs, all direct and ultra-angry. I defined the style as "post thrash" precisely due to the discussion above, but if someone defines it as thrash/death, they wouldn't be far off. The thrash/death component of this album is quite strong, starting with the production, handled by the ubiquitous Scott Burns at Morrisound Studio. The songs often resemble the style of bands like Sepultura, as there are several fast parts with intense drumming and very fast riffs. But the most important components of the album are the "mosh" parts, where the band slows down, playing massive, heavy, and extremely angry riffs, and Kyle Thomas' singing, a bastard and dark voice, far from the shouted and harsh voices of the most uncompromising thrash, and from the death metal growl. It makes you think of an Anselmo in a hoarser version, but that would be offensive to Thomas for historical reasons.

There's not much else to say about the songs, the style is similar for all of them, except for the various intros/outros composed of noises, crying children, church chants... Exhorder just thought about thrashing around without any finesse. They didn't care about technicality (the solos are quite raw!) and didn't aim to be. They wanted to make noise, shout all their anger and urge their listeners to headbang. And in this, they succeeded completely! Songs like the title track have a killer momentum, making you want to shoulder-bump the wardrobe while shouting EXHOOORDAAAAARRRRR!!! However, I have to say that the quality is not consistent throughout the album; there are some repetitive points that lower the overall quality. The album's production is good, the sounds are quite heavy and powerful, although Scott Burns has managed better. The packaging is spectacular. The cover has a stunning drawing that deserves to be hung in the bedroom above the bed's headboard. It depicts a view from inside St. Peter's: at the top is the band's logo; in the center is the door opening to St. Peter's Square, with two lines of very angry people lined up on either side of the road leading to a scaffold; to the left of the door is a painting representing "Anal Lust", and to the right, a painting representing "Homicide" (obviously quite explicit). And who's at the bottom? Below, there are a couple of people dressed in black with dark glasses forcibly taking the pope towards the scaffold! All in perfect theme with the lyrics, which are genuinely raw (the lyrics of "Anal Lust" were censored, in "Desecrator" there's a clear "fuck your god"), explicit and fiercely anticlerical!

The booklet notes are also spectacular: there are the classic "thanks," the "extra special thanks," and then the legendary "fuck you" which begins with "if you wear make-up and have a tool swinging between your legs" (for those who don't know English sounds like "if you wear make-up and have a gadget dangling between your legs"). In conclusion, this is an album of rather high historical importance, but known by few. In terms of quality, we're at very high levels, but not of excellence. It's worth mentioning that Pantera stole Exhorder's spot, but they also managed to make better albums, let's give Pantera what is Pantera's (the quality) and Exhorder what is Exhorder's (the ownership of the genre).