Slough Feg
Ape Uprising

THE REVIEW

Do you know what the strength of this extraordinary group of Californians, active for over two decades, is? They know how to embellish their music with the most diverse nuances (folk, epic, Celtic, doom) while always remaining unmistakably metallic! These are Slough Feg: pure and raw heavy metal, without frills and devoid of tacky melodic embellishments. With Ape Uprising, the band declares their immeasurable love for traditional metal for the seventh time, which will not please those who think that the 80/90 decade has already run its course, considering later releases as bland remakes of music that had already tasted its pinnacle of expressive and experimental virtue in its golden years. Ape Uprising will instead satisfy those who believe in a record that resurrects the ancient roots of traditional metal, resting on forty minutes divided into eight tracks full of fresh vigor and ancient magic.

Let's delve into it, then, and jump directly to the third track, the highest point of this musical spectacle: the title track. A perhaps unusual piece for the band, usually inclined towards short and intricate compositions, which in this case offers a ten-minute suite, opened by a captivating epic/folk (embellished by the rough and charismatic voice of Mike Scalzi), which then turns into a prodigious instrumental epic with a "maiden-esque" twist, shattered by the opening riff of the following Simian Manifesto and its explosive hard'n'heavy. Then the sounds harden with the monolithic classic metal of Shakedown at the Six before softening into the folklore of White Cousin, harmonized appropriately by acoustic parts. Excellent too is Nasty Hero, placed at the end, where the lively exchanges between axe mates Scalzi/Tringali make the instrumental parts irresistible and engaging.

In short, the divine verdict on the fate of this album is entirely in your hands. It's up to you to decide whether to greedily seize such abundance or to discard it forever, aware of a past that has already sufficiently satisfied you. All you have to do is choose your group of belonging...

Slough Feg: Ape Uprising (release date 08/05/2009)

Lineup:

Mike Scalzi: vocals, guitars

Angelo Tringali: guitars

Harry Cantweel: drums

Adrian Maestas: bass

Tracklist:

1 The Hunchback of Notre Doom

2 Overborne

3 Ape Uprising

4 Simian Manifesto

5 Shakedown at the Six

6 White Cousin

7 Ape Outro

8 Nasty Hero