1984 wasn’t as bad a year as George Orwell imagined. The Canadian death/thrash band Slaughter was formed in that year. In 1987 they released their only studio album, Strappado. They released additional new music the next year and then disbanded. As far as I can tell from my researches, they recorded nothing new in the studio until briefly re-forming in 1995-1996 to record a cover of “Dethroned Emperor” for a Celtic Frost tribute album. The first songs in this backward-looking post come from Strappado.

The next song in this post was recorded by the Finnish band Slugathor. The song was recommended by our friend SurgicalBrute. Interestingly, I thought of Slaughter only because the autocorrect feature in my word processor insisted on converting “Slugathor” to “Slaughter”. Sometimes autocorrect is your friend.

Anyway, Slugathor were born in Finland about 15 years after Slaughter, and you can certainly tell the difference that 15 years makes. The song that SurgicalBrute recommended, which is one hell of a song, is “The Smoke” and it comes from the band’s third and final album, Echoes From Beneath (2009). Continue reading »