Rigor Mortis - Slaves To The Grave

Rigor Mortis - Slaves To The Grave
Released by: Rigor Mortis Records
Released on: October 7th, 2012.
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Rigor Mortis had a fairly high profile brush with fame in the late eighties when Capitol Records signed them and their self titled debut album was released in 1988. That relationship didn't last, however, and neither did their relationship with original vocalist Doyle Bright who was replaced by Bruce Corbitt. An EP called Freaks would follow in 1989 and then Rigor Mortis Vs. The Earth in 1991 (released by Triple X Records, the same label that put out the early Jane's Addiction stuff!) but soon enough the members of the band would split into different directions. The most prominent of these directions would be guitarist Mike Scaccia who would go on to play with Ministry and a lot of the other Wax Traxx bands like 1000 Homo DJs and The Revolting Cocks but RM's bass player Casey Orr was in Gwar for a lengthy stint as the second Beefcake The Mighty. Other members would wind up in Warbeast and Hallows Eve - so yeah, the guys that were Rigor Mortis kept busy and made a lot of music. Meanwhile, those early Rigor Morits albums would go on to influence all sorts of bands but since 1991, there wasn't really any new material from the band.

2014 changes that, but we need to rewind a little bit. See, the guys in the band stayed friends and in 2005 started talking about getting back together. And they did, playing Ozzfest and a few other festivals and then deciding to enter the studio in early 2012 to record their first new album in two decades. By all accounts, things were going well until Scaccia had a fatal heart attack on December 22^nd, 2012. The band was finished, they would not continue, BUT…. Scaccia had finished recording all of his guitar tracks for the album and so the album was finished, but not with any label support. No Scaccia meant no tour which meant no promotion so the remaining members did an IndieGoGo campaign, raised the money to get it 'in the can' and now, low and behold, Slaves To The Grave is finally done and ready to invade your eardrums.

The complete track listing for Slaves To The Grave is as follows:

Poltergeist / Rain Of Ruin / Flesh For Flies / The Infected / Blood Bath / Ancient Horror / Fragrance Of Corpses / Curse Of The Draugr / Sacramentum Gladiatorum / Ludus Magnus

Opening track Poltergeist is a thrashy track that sets things out in the right direction with some angry gang vocals belaying a bit of a hardcore influence. You can hear that in the guitars too, while the vocals sound a little bit like Oderus from Gwar at his angriest but without aping his style at all. This is a great track, with a mellow breakdown in the middle to put you at ease before kicking you in the face again to bring it all to a finish. Rain Of Ruin kicks off in similar fashion, fast and heavy and angry, a great mix of metal and punk with Scaccia's guitar definitely having that Ministry sound to it (the band did record it in at Ministry's 13th Planet Studios in El Paso after all), albeit with less of an industrial bent to it. This track is pretty relentless and possibly the best one on the album, though there aren't a lot of weak spots here, truth be told.

In the third track, Flesh For Flies, the guitars remain right up front but we get a chance to really appreciate Casey Orr's bass playing and Harden Harrison's drumming as the band launches into full on speed metal territory, maybe conjuring up some early Slayer with the sound on this one. The Infected has a bit more of a melodic sound to it, showcasing some super fast guitar playing and it has a bit of an Iron Maiden influence obvious in spots. Kind of sounds a bit like Aces High, but again, angrier and thrashier and with some punk spirit behind it. Bloodbath marks the half way point, and at just fifteen seconds shy of the seven minute mark it's a longer track but the band keeps the pace throughout and those drums sound bad ass here and there's a really wild and fairly technical guitar solo here that hits just around the two and a half minute mark before the band heads back into the thrash zone.

Ancient Horror doesn't break from tradition, neither does Fragrance Of Corpses, both songs fast, angry and a little bit scary with the first one really pounding in rhythm and vocal delivery and the second, the shortest on the album at three minutes and eighteen seconds, demonstrating a bit more of a traditional metal sound. Curse Of The Draugr is more of the same, thought that's a compliment really. Fast, speedy, angry and dark it's got some more gang vocals on the chorus that, when combined with the refined anger contained in the track, once again harkens back to an early hardcore sound.

The album comes to a close with the penultimate track, Sacramentum Gladiatorum, clocking in at just under five minutes in length. It starts off with some ominous sounding acoustic guitar work to set an appropriately eerie mood, complimented by some strange choral vocals almost chanting in the background. Half way in, the guitars go nuts, really fast soloing while the drum and bass behind it keep the rhythm moving nicely. It's an instrumental track that does a fantastic job of leading into the big finish, the nearly ten minute long closer, Ludus Magnus. A narrative intro welcomes the 'slaves' to the titular gladiatorial training school, warning us of death and noting that we should die with honor and to the roar of the crowd. From there we are asked to recite the Sacramentum Gladiatorum to receive the 'mark of the brotherhood.' That happens, we hear it chanted, the crowd roars, and the narrator tells us of what is to come in this world where men are trained to kill. These guys were maybe watching too much Spartacus when they were writing this one? Either way, at two and a half minutes in the slower pace gallops forward at a steady clip and then the narration kicks in again, continuing the story. It's a great track, the narration holds our attention and it deftly zips back and forth between some bizarre proggish noodling on Scaccia's part to straight up traditional thrash in places. It works and it works surprisingly well, closing out this album on a truly epic note with rhythm guitars riding high beneath the lead and the drums and bass anchoring things really, really tightly.

This album is GREAT. Having been fan funded, the band obviously had complete creative control over the project from start to finish and as such, would seem to have been under no pressure to play by the rules. As such, they experiment a lot, staying true to their thrash roots but working punk and prog elements in with equal measure. There are times where they do sound a bit more like Gwar than maybe you would expect but they do so without the comic leanings or completely over the top cartoonish style. Throw in elements from psych-rock/pres-punk stuff like The Stooges and yes, even the MC5 with elements from Agnostic Front's more metal friendly albums and this hodgepodge of styles and influences turns out to be undeniably listenable and an absolutely killer crossover album that serves not only as a testament to Rigor Mortis but as a fitting send off to Scaccia.

Supposedly physical copies of the first pressing of the album will include a 'making of' DVD but none of that stuff was included with review materials so you'll have to use your imagination to figure out if that means anything to you or not. On a side note, the surviving members of Rigor Mortis still play this stuff live, albeit under the name The Wizards Of Gore.

But hey, check out the track Poltergeist below!

Want more? Then dig into Flesh For Flies!