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Rating: It's always a pleasure to listen to a band like Slough Feg, proud exponents of the most classic USA scene. Having been active for over twenty years, they are a guarantee for those who love more traditional sounds, constantly balancing between raw hard rock, 1980s school heavy, and epic and folk atmospheres.
While on one hand, Mike Scalzi and his fellows' musical roots are evident, on the other, it should be recognized how they have managed to create a sonic and conceptual universe like few others, personal and perhaps, for this very reason, not easily marketable, effectively relegating the group to a small niche of faithful listeners.
With a strictly four-member formation as tradition requires, zero keyboards, and listening dictated by the interplay of the guitars, a rocky and syncopated rhythm section, and a stentorian and evocative voice. Put this way, everything might not seem too original, and perhaps it doesn't even want to be, but what might appear to be the usual second-tier group, on closer inspection turns out to be a band of great depth, with a long and articulated discography. More than once, they have enjoyed the support of respectable labels like Dragonheart and now, finally, a giant like Metal Blade.
From a purely conceptual point of view, Slough Feg move in an extremely vast universe, ranging from Celtic mythology to role-playing games and fantasy comics, ideal for diving into Scalzi's visions, an author who wants to be free from any restrictions, both in genre and theme. "Want to write a song like Motorhead? I'll talk about bikes. Want to talk about something else? I won't write a Motorhead song." Simple, right? What's surprising, in fact, is how, even after ten or fifteen years of activity, the four can still write valid, solid, and enjoyable albums, without falling into clichéd solutions or becoming predictable, perhaps also thanks to Scalzi's countless sources of inspiration, capable, as previously mentioned, of dedicating years to Celtism only to switch, all of a sudden, to science fiction. "The Celts? Nice, but now I'm tired of them." Thus, a torrential talent, with an easily recognizable writing style, with songs that often resemble nursery rhymes, musically often detached from any song structure or at least from the strict verse-verse-chorus-etc-etc alternation. How many times what might appear on an inattentive first listen to be simply a change of tempo actually turns out to be the start of the next track, or a song ends by "fading" into the next?
"Down Among the Deadmen" was released in 2000 and is usually considered one of their best works. It's the last so far to feature those themes initially so dear to Scalzi, of myth and Celtism, which would soon be abandoned: a pity that the lyrics are not accompanied by explanatory lines, as beyond realizing that it's likely a concept album, it's often unclear who the various characters engaged one by one are or what events are narrated. A few introductory lines might have perhaps involved the listener more, but reading the various interviews given over the years, it seems that Scalzi himself isn't too interested, since lately, he hasn't even been publishing the song lyrics in the CD booklets.
Listening to Slough Feg, you get the impression of encountering what heavy metal, at least in its most classic conception, should be: few preset schemes, a lot of music, and much imagination. A band which, paradoxically, precisely because of the great freedom with which it writes, is destined to remain the domain of a few, but on the other hand, it seems Mr. Scalzi is perfectly fine with that. At least one listen would be mandatory; you might be pleasantly surprised and surely won't find yourself facing yet another Stratovarius clone.
The Lord Weird Slough Feg:
Mike Scalzi, vocals and guitar
Jim Mack, bass (on track no. 13)
Jon Torres, bass
John Cobbett, guitars
Greg Haa, drums
"Down Among the Deadmen":
1. Sky Chariots
2. Walls of Shame
3. Warriors Dawn
4. Beast in the Broch
5. Heavy Metal Monk
6. Fergus Mac Roich
7. Cauldron of Blood
8. Troll Pack
9. Traders and Gunboats
10. Psionic Illuminations
11. Marauder
12. High Season
13. Death Machine
Tracklist and Videos
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