Socks Slayer

Kaliningrad-based one-man slam death meets industrial project Slam Master is a relatively new player on the slavic slam scene, but it's a brand that has managed to offer a highly original merger of styles that rivals the strides made by The Berserker, Cephalic Carnage and a few others going back to the mid-1990s. Arguably the biggest difference between these older players and this particular slavic upstart is that the industrial themes are harmonized with a similarly groove-based and repetitions metallic template rather than a frenetically fast and chaotic one, while still being far more extreme than the Fear Factories and Ministries of the world. The only thing really working against this slamming jack of all trades and master of two is that recording output has been on the sparse side since the project's late 2010s inception.

To this point, the project's 2020 EP Socks Slayer, a somewhat cryptic title for those not privy to the band's employment of cultural/political idioms, offers the first relatively extensive insight into the duality of atmosphere and impact that is Slam Master's signature sound. Compared to the subsequent conceptual follow up Slamming Zone, it's a bit more geared to the brutal side of the coin, as once the quirky synthesizers that dominate the instrumental opening "Start The Slavic Party" gives way to a largely chaotic and blast-steeped beast of an anthem dubbed "Hardbass" that, nevertheless, checks all of the slam boxes while having a consistent stream of keyboards lingering at the fringes. The closing number and title song "Socks Slayer" is slightly more developed and takes a little time to work into an apex of brutality, but apart from the weird keyboard additives could easily be mistook for a Pathology or Skinless entry.

Chalk it up to yours truly being a novice in the realm of industrial and extreme metal hybrids, but this manages to be both solid and wanting for a lot more at the same time. The overt minimalism at play here just comes off as overly safe, and it feels that even in spite of the shortness of this offering, that it tends to drag a bit at times. A few more twists and turns in either how things progress rhythmically or harmonically would go a long way to augment this interesting stylistic niche, and further exploitation of the vast array of synthesizer settings that Nikita Dubik likely has on his keyboards could further spice things up. The average slam fan will probably find this an adequate appetizer, but will more likely gravitate for material out of older and more established acts.