ALBUM REVIEW: Slower – Slower

Thrash legends SLAYER have been covered more times than you can possibly comprehend over the last 43 years, however, they haven’t been covered quite like this before. The unstoppable creative force Bob Balch (FU MANCHU, YAWNING BALCH) got the inspiration for SLOWER after a guitar lesson with one of his students. The student wanted to learn SLAYER’s South Of Heaven, but being a beginner Balch had to slow it down. Thinking it sounded awesome, he tuned his guitar to B standard and started playing around with SLAYER material. Balch became friends with Steven “Thee Slayer Hippy” Hanford (POISON IDEA) and both shared the love for this idea. However after Hanford’s untimely passing, the project was shelved. 

That was until drummer Esben Willems (MONOLORD) put a call out for new musical collaborators; Balch presented him the idea of SLOWER and the project’s foundations were laid in earnest. The project grew and now features heavyweight members from across the doom, heavy psych and stoner scenes. Alongside Balch and Willems on this sludgy, SLAYER-inspired endeavour is Amy Barrysmith (vocals, YEAR OF THE COBRA), Laura Pleasants (vocals, KYLESA), Peder Bergstrand (bass, LOWRIDER) and Scott Reeder (bass, KYUSS). 

The album itself is crushingly heavy and most surprisingly, trippy and psychedelic. The slow, consistent, sinister chugging that forms the back bone of the album – probably due to Kerry King having a penchant for riffs not going past the third fret – is hypnotic and oddly processional. It feels like you’re walking amongst hooded figures, holding long candles as you slowly march into the mouth of hell. Even though the songs are SLAYER classics, Balch has turned them into something in their own right. The best way to describe it is ELECTRIC WIZARD-sized riffs with  ethereal ACID KING style vocals. The songs have transformed into their own thing, and it gives the listener a different perspective on these well-known thrash juggernauts.

The album is split into two line-ups. The first four tracks of the album are performed by Willems, Balch, Barrysmith and Bergstrand, while the last track South Of Heaven swaps out Barrysmith and Bergstrand with Pleasants and Reeder. Each musician contributes their own signature style to the overarching SLOWER goal, with influences from heavy psych, doom and stoner all being thrown together and brewed in a sludgy witch’s cauldron. The concoction works better than you’d expect, where the SLAYER riffs play into the devil’s triad-esque framework laid down by BLACK SABBATH, down-tuning them and playing them slower has worked marvellously. It gives them a whole new character that is intriguing and atmospheric.

Even the lyrics take on a new perspective. Hauntingly sung by Barrysmith and Pleasants, the higher register layered vocals throughout the album give the songs a wonderfully eerie feeling. Conjuring up imagery of hellscapes that are watched over by armies of demons, black towers rise out of the lava-filled cracks in the ground and the tortured screams of damned souls curse your ears with every descending step into the abyss. Balch seemingly knows his subject material inside and out to be able to rearrange the songs in such an exciting and refreshing way. 

The album opens up with a crushing and bruising cover of War Ensemble; by slowing it down SLOWER extend the original’s length by five-and-a-half minutes. Tumultuous chugging drives the song forward underpinned by a swaggering drum groove laid down by Willems. Rumbling along like a massive Howitzer railway gun, War Ensemble is ten pulverising, sludge-laden minutes of riffs and drums. The Antichrist has more of an ELECTRIC WIZARD vibe with a leading riff before everything else piles in around you. Oppressive and dark, Balch and co. make this song intensely atmospheric. Even though it is sludge, SLOWER don’t skip over the solos either, adding in some epic soaring bluesy notes through the hulking mass of riffs. This is best demonstrated on The Antichrist. 

Blood Red turns into a cultic anthem, where you offer to transcend your soul beyond the realms of mortality and submit it to a supreme, dark overlord. Screeching solos and clobbering chugs batter your skull mercilessly. Leading into Dead Skin Mask, and the last song featuring Barrysmith, the album takes an atmospheric turn. Doomy drones and descending guitar slides make you feel like the gates of hell are opening whilst Barrysmith’s vocals sound like spells being chanted, bewitching you completely. Closing with South Of Heaven, this finishes the album with a dark, oppressive dirge – a final brutal blow as you descend into madness in hell. 

Considering Balch comes from a more psychedelic background, SLOWER is a surprising change from the norm. It also goes to show the enjoyment you can have by covering songs in a different way. SLOWER enable you to look at SLAYER songs in a different way and they bring the riffs while they’re at it. 

Rating: 8/10

Slower is set for release on January 26th via Heavy Psych Sounds. 

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