The Slayerking
Sanatana Dharma
Finisterian Dead End
2016
The Slayerking is a an offshoot of Nightfall’s mainman Efthimis Karadimas “dayjob”, which one can presume, as being a little bit “dead in the water”, suffering a monumental decline in popularity in the past few years. It might have been one of the first bands to be acknowledged beyond the Greek borders by obtaining a recording contract with Holy Records back in the long bygone early 90s, but nosedived artistically and commercially when they started experimenting with electronic sounds by the end of that decade… they almost managed to regain a footing with 2003’s quite successful “I Am Jesus” only to go into a six year unofficial hiatus, after the monumental flop that 2004’s “Lyssa” album was, with the band resuming with a much different line-up and the couple of albums that followed just showed that the bands appeal had diminishing even further, not even managing to surpass sales of 300 copies in their native land…
Obviously it’s not hard to recognize the reasons behind that band’s fall from grace, but since this is a new band’s debut that is under review here, which however shares more than just a frontman to the old one, (general style/feel, the fact that another French label seems to be releasing the debut etc.), I felt that a little history lesson was both necessary and a fun trip down memory lane.
Now The Slayerking has a great deadweight to begin with in the shape of their frontman. Efthimis is a rather pretentious guy and a wannabe singer with a very generic and not likable timbre, a miniscule range upon. which he seems to dwell all over the place much too often and a tendency to over pronounce vowels, ie. the spoken intro to “She’s My Lazarus” or the comical delivery of the chorus of “We Are the End”. He also does play some basic bass, over some OK drumming of a young girl named Anna that does sound organic, but also slightly crappy (sound wise). Then there’s Kostas K (presumably a brother or maybe a cousin?) on guitar who in the middle of this whole dissonance and cacophony seems like the light at the end of the worl, with some nifty riffs and ideas, but he’s not enough to save face or grace... for The Slayerking...
The band describes their sound as a mixture of doom, dark rock, goth and heavy metal similar to acts like Tiamat, Paradise Lost and Nightfall. Well I would dare say that the former two comparisons are wishful thinking while the latter is more “on the money”, only this sounds like a trimmed down more melodic and less aggressive version of the 00s output of that band, which hardly could be associated with some of the better doom/dark bands the band would like to be compared to 70s influences? Because of the organic/bad production? Hardly. By the way it’s 2016, so unless you do retro “properly” I have to assume it’s just a “cheap ass” production job.
The Hindu album title (eternal order) has hardly any significance as the band hardly explores any religious themes, but I guess using some exotic phrase is sort of mysterious and appealing, as is using a style of art heavily influenced by Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha much in the same fashion as Baroness have, somehow popularizing the “certain look” of heavily stylized pale colored female forms amongst floral decorations… all over again.
But let’s be a little more critical:
“She’s My Lazarus” spends some 3 minutes with Karadimas mumbling about possession over some sound effects with a terrible accent, before some guitar kills the monotony of all that with some rather inspired ideas only to very abruptly have it all led off to a hasty solo that fades out leaving a rather sour impression, as if the song is left unfinished, before the basic motif is repeated one last time…
“Black Mother of the Lord of Light” (which goes to show that EK is not the only Greek extreme metaller inspired by GRR Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”// Game of Thrones literature/universe) is a much better composition actually alluding to some old Nightfall, in some ways, but much tamer… the musical ideas are solid enough and anyone other than EK could have made this song take flight and not sound “so” mediocre…
“Sargon of Akkad” seems to delve back into history, to give a short account of Sargon, A Semetic-Akkadian monarch, the first of his house actually, who rose to power in the middle east during the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, by conquest of the Sumerian city states and other lands relative to those roughly forming a big strip of land between Asia Minor and the Gulf... it’s not bad I must say…
“Magnificent Desolation” is pretty psychedelic and eastern flavored, a quite hypnotic little number that’s often and rather abruptly gets ruined by Karadimas’ infusion of angry metallic growls over a nice metallic riff…
“We Are the End” dwells between creepy and comical, occupying both ends. EK’s spoken vocals and descriptions offering part of the comedy, while the rest is extracted from the off tune exhaled chorus… and the background maudlin that almost sounds like it belongs to a bad porn soundtrack from the 70s (probably one of the few points where I agree this actually sounds like something from the 70s). I have to also question the sanity of another riff that plays over and over, until a solo plays over it before our favorite “bad singer” reprises his catastrophic efforts at singing the chorus.
“My Lai” could well be referring to the atrocious massacre during the Vietnam War and because of its simple and rather unassuming, mostly based on a sad guitar motif, works rather well.
“The Man that Never Was” seems to be another literature inspired number, but it’s slow and numb, not really making a huge impression.
Lastly, “Southern Gate of the Sun” is about the sign of “Capricorn” and it is another not quite terrible song that however leaves quite a bit to be desired.
Well, other people from our glorious nation have actually carved quite illustrious careers, not really being that much more talented than poor EK, so that must have left a bad taste in his mouth, but I doubt that “The Slayerkings” semi decent debut is going to change the status quo in the Greek scene... for better or for worse.
At hardly 40 minutes this could very well be treated as an EP and not a particularly impressive one at that. While it’s possibly better than almost anything else that EK has been responsible for this side of the millennium at times it offers plenty of unintended hilarity because of Karadimas lack of vocal ability. Tough...
Obviously it’s not hard to recognize the reasons behind that band’s fall from grace, but since this is a new band’s debut that is under review here, which however shares more than just a frontman to the old one, (general style/feel, the fact that another French label seems to be releasing the debut etc.), I felt that a little history lesson was both necessary and a fun trip down memory lane.
Now The Slayerking has a great deadweight to begin with in the shape of their frontman. Efthimis is a rather pretentious guy and a wannabe singer with a very generic and not likable timbre, a miniscule range upon. which he seems to dwell all over the place much too often and a tendency to over pronounce vowels, ie. the spoken intro to “She’s My Lazarus” or the comical delivery of the chorus of “We Are the End”. He also does play some basic bass, over some OK drumming of a young girl named Anna that does sound organic, but also slightly crappy (sound wise). Then there’s Kostas K (presumably a brother or maybe a cousin?) on guitar who in the middle of this whole dissonance and cacophony seems like the light at the end of the worl, with some nifty riffs and ideas, but he’s not enough to save face or grace... for The Slayerking...
The band describes their sound as a mixture of doom, dark rock, goth and heavy metal similar to acts like Tiamat, Paradise Lost and Nightfall. Well I would dare say that the former two comparisons are wishful thinking while the latter is more “on the money”, only this sounds like a trimmed down more melodic and less aggressive version of the 00s output of that band, which hardly could be associated with some of the better doom/dark bands the band would like to be compared to 70s influences? Because of the organic/bad production? Hardly. By the way it’s 2016, so unless you do retro “properly” I have to assume it’s just a “cheap ass” production job.
The Hindu album title (eternal order) has hardly any significance as the band hardly explores any religious themes, but I guess using some exotic phrase is sort of mysterious and appealing, as is using a style of art heavily influenced by Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha much in the same fashion as Baroness have, somehow popularizing the “certain look” of heavily stylized pale colored female forms amongst floral decorations… all over again.
But let’s be a little more critical:
“She’s My Lazarus” spends some 3 minutes with Karadimas mumbling about possession over some sound effects with a terrible accent, before some guitar kills the monotony of all that with some rather inspired ideas only to very abruptly have it all led off to a hasty solo that fades out leaving a rather sour impression, as if the song is left unfinished, before the basic motif is repeated one last time…
“Black Mother of the Lord of Light” (which goes to show that EK is not the only Greek extreme metaller inspired by GRR Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”// Game of Thrones literature/universe) is a much better composition actually alluding to some old Nightfall, in some ways, but much tamer… the musical ideas are solid enough and anyone other than EK could have made this song take flight and not sound “so” mediocre…
“Sargon of Akkad” seems to delve back into history, to give a short account of Sargon, A Semetic-Akkadian monarch, the first of his house actually, who rose to power in the middle east during the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, by conquest of the Sumerian city states and other lands relative to those roughly forming a big strip of land between Asia Minor and the Gulf... it’s not bad I must say…
“Magnificent Desolation” is pretty psychedelic and eastern flavored, a quite hypnotic little number that’s often and rather abruptly gets ruined by Karadimas’ infusion of angry metallic growls over a nice metallic riff…
“We Are the End” dwells between creepy and comical, occupying both ends. EK’s spoken vocals and descriptions offering part of the comedy, while the rest is extracted from the off tune exhaled chorus… and the background maudlin that almost sounds like it belongs to a bad porn soundtrack from the 70s (probably one of the few points where I agree this actually sounds like something from the 70s). I have to also question the sanity of another riff that plays over and over, until a solo plays over it before our favorite “bad singer” reprises his catastrophic efforts at singing the chorus.
“My Lai” could well be referring to the atrocious massacre during the Vietnam War and because of its simple and rather unassuming, mostly based on a sad guitar motif, works rather well.
“The Man that Never Was” seems to be another literature inspired number, but it’s slow and numb, not really making a huge impression.
Lastly, “Southern Gate of the Sun” is about the sign of “Capricorn” and it is another not quite terrible song that however leaves quite a bit to be desired.
Well, other people from our glorious nation have actually carved quite illustrious careers, not really being that much more talented than poor EK, so that must have left a bad taste in his mouth, but I doubt that “The Slayerkings” semi decent debut is going to change the status quo in the Greek scene... for better or for worse.
At hardly 40 minutes this could very well be treated as an EP and not a particularly impressive one at that. While it’s possibly better than almost anything else that EK has been responsible for this side of the millennium at times it offers plenty of unintended hilarity because of Karadimas lack of vocal ability. Tough...