SKID ROW TOOK ROCK TO THE METALLIC EXTREME
The line between controlled hard rock and out of control heavy metal was a very fine one in the 80`s.
Bands like Guns and Roses, Poison and Aerosmith could lay claim to being a rock `n`roll band or at least inspired by old fashioned rock `n`roll as much as being practitioners of heavy metal/hard rock.
Megadeth, Slayer and an imagary of copycat thrash metal bands took things to the extreme in the pursuit of heavyness and outdoing Metallica, but the simple truth is none of them, not even Metallica themselves post Master of Puppets in the year 1986, were really that heavy.
If you ask me Master of Reality and Paranoid by Black Sabbath in the early 1970`s was more genuinely heavier (or more dense in sound) than all the noise released under the banner of thrash metal from the mid 80`s onwards.
Slayer is one terribly tacky and offensive band which should not have ever be given the opportunity to record music laced with violent and Satanic lyrics promoting anything from bashing people up to neo-nazism.
You got to draw a line somewhere as far as tolerance and free speech in the performing arts goes, and clearly, Slayer isn`t thrash metal, it`s trash metal, and quite honestly, Slash could cook up a meaner guitar riff than the two dudes playing guitar in Slayer.
Got no time for Slayer or thrash metal in general, with the exception of about a dozen Metallica songs and a dozen Megadeth songs, the thrash metal genre is totally crap.
The one band which successfully fused both
thrash metal and heavy rock together better than any other band, well at least on one album, is Skid Row. It has to be said that their 1991 album, their second one after a self titled one a few years earlier, is probably as heavy as you can get and still be rock just as much as thrash metal.
The name of the album is `Slave to the
Grind`, and it truly is a very convincing and brutally heavy album, at least in parts. If you crossed GNR and I dare say the intent of Slayer, with the monumentally meaty guitar riffs of James Hetfield out of Metallica, you would probably come up with something that sounds like `Slave to the Grind`.
The lead singer Sebastian Bach was only a kid when it was recorded, so his adolescent voice is a bit of mismatch with the wall of guitar noise backing him, but he did have a good amount of lead singer charisma to cover him for the obvious lack of blues depth in his vocals.
But hey, Robert Plant was not exactly Louise Armstrong - was he? The opening track `Monkey Business` has a short slow tempo intro before the band gets into it and plays some thundering (but uncommonly genuinely heavy) speed rock, bordering on all out thrash metal.
The title track is the most intentionally made
thrash song, it rollicks along like a song that Sepultura might have used to warm up backstage with.
thrash song, it rollicks along like a song that Sepultura might have used to warm up backstage with.
The song `The Threat` is probably the best mixture you will ever get of controlled thrash that`s mixed with Guns and Roses street rock.
`Creepshow` is really moody and effortless rock and roll, but heavy on a monumental scale of course.
`Mudkicker` has the Gunners written all over it, it`s not hard to understand why Axel Rose has such an affinity with Sebastian Bach.
Man this song has one tough guitar riff fueling it, and Sebastian Bach does not sound like he`s joking either.
The most confrontational song, and heavy as well, would have to be `Livin On a Chain Gang`. This song illustrates probably more than any of the other eleven the underlying simmering juvenile anger that was successfully conveyed by the band on the whole album and what made it onto tape.
Slave to the Grind is probably the most convincing attempt by any band to harnish the power of thrash metal and mix it with the swagger of 80`s hard rock. It is definitely not an album for the faint hearted.
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