Published on Aug 24, 1998
There are times that bands can amaze me. Although I have had the
first three albums from the hard rock quartet Slaughter in the
Pierce Archives (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a sale), I’ve
never been a big fan of the group. (I also admit I have not
listened to these albums in years… this is one reason “The Daily
Vault” was started: to force me to listen to things I hadn’t
touched in a long time.)
However, a recent trip to the used record store found me walking
out with a copy of Slaughter’s fourth album (third if you don’t
count
Stick It Live),
Fear No Evil. And what I heard on these twelve songs, quite
frankly, blew my mind. This was a band that had gotten their
musical act together and had created a tight package that was not
afraid of taking chances. One fan site I checked out called this
Slaughter’s best release; I don’t have any disagreement with
that.
The band – vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Mark Slaughter,
guitarist Tim Kelly (who was killed in a car crash earlier this
year), bassist Dana Strum and drummer Blas Elias – have by no means
abandoned their hard rock roots. Instead, they have refined them,
as well as their chops, to create a fresh sound. One listen to even
the first song on the album, “Live Like There’s No Tomorrow,” tells
you that this is a different Slaughter than the one that cranked
out “Up All Night” and “Fly To The Angels”.
Songs like “Get Used To It” (which still had a little more rock
cliche than I would have liked), “Let The Good Times Roll” and
“Outta My Head” all demonstrate the power Slaughter has had all
along – a power better served with well-written material. (Even the
“spacer” pieces “Divine Order” and “Prelude,” are solid efforts,
and make you wish they had been longer to see how they
developed.)
The chances that Slaugher take on
Fear No Evil are where the band finds its greatest success.
“Searchin'” features Slaughter performing a vocal in an entirely
different style. In fact, I preferred it over some of the yelping;
this was much more soulful and moving. And although the keyboard
part on “It’ll Be Alright” sounds like it came right off of The
Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever,” it does add a new twist to
the mix that ends up freshening up the flavor quite a bit.
In one sense,
Fear No Evil is the perfect album for the Slaughter fan. But
still, I would have liked to hear more songs (which would have
meant possibly cutting the two “spacer” pieces”) and less cliche –
for that matter, I would have liked to hear Kelly break the
boundaries of control and just cut loose with a guitar solo from
hell. There’s definite emotion in his playing, but I would have
liked a little more garlic to it, if you will.
Fear No Evil faced two hurdles when it came out in 1995.
First, metal was – at least in the eyes of the industry – dead, and
no one seemed to want to promote it for fear of throwing money into
the toilet. Second, many people didn’t take Slaughter seriously
(and some still don’t). Saying that Slaughter made a good album was
akin to saying that a television product actually worked. (On that
note, I loved my Pocket Fisherman when I was growing up.)
Let’s be honest: I bought this album on a whim; I was willing to
give it a chance for two bucks. And in the end, it turned out to be
a gamble that was well worth taking. Unfortunately for Slaughter,
not many people were willing to take such a gamble. Two words: your
loss.
Fear No Evil showed a lot of growth in the band, and was a
surprisingly solid and powerful release from a band that earned the
right for your attention. It’s enough to make me willing to give
those earlier albums another chance.