Deathmetal band ‘Slaughter To Prevail‘ are dropping their debut album ‘Misery Sermon‘ to you all on 5th May 2017, and yes their music is as bone chillingly brutal as their name and artwork suggests. This is the kind of music that makes me want to pull my brain out through my ears and set myself on fire after about 30 seconds, but maybe thats the point. Its aggressive, its demonic, its powerful. It fills you with rage and courses through you like a raw dark energy.
The intricacy and skill involved to play, write, and perform such music is admirable, along with the intensity it takes to record, produce and edit it. However, from the constant overly programmed blast beats to the incomprehensible vocals and mind numbing similarity between each song, the whole album could be one, extremely long track. There is nothing overly distinguishable between any of the songs, even the guitar runs and squeals follow the same pattern mostly and the breakdowns generally stick to conventional rhythms. Nothing sticks out about them or defines them, nothing that hasn’t been done before. However, ‘Below‘ is a mesmerizing musical interlude which builds into a pounding drum rhythm and finger breaking solo, however ends with again, the generic blast beats.
The intro to ‘King‘ (single from the album) shows variety and was a pleasant respite from the overly generic sound on most of the album, and is a pretty epic track from start to finish. ‘Failed Hope‘ also starts strong with more dynamics and contrast. Overall, the album is produced and finished well, a modern polished twist to extreme deathmetal. However again, nothing really sticks out. If you’re a fan of the genre, theres probably a few songs in there for you and well worth a listen, however its just not quite my cup of tea.