Strappado

I love a simple riff when it’s played with enough heart/passion/balls to make it segue into something infinitely more interesting. There’s no other way of attributing the success of a band like Motörhead, from whom Slaughter borrow greatly.

The “Strappado” album as I like to call it has some killing songs which all tend to share the same riff or two or three over its half hour running time. “Nocturnal Hell” segues into “F.O.D.” with what seems like little regard for the new track; it sounds identical. I don’t mind though; put it on in the background; certain parts grab you by the coat-tails and although the album is so dated, there is no doubting the intensity of it. There’s really nothing here we haven’t heard executed better elsewhere, but the familiarity of it all is reassuring. That, and I actually looked up the meaning of the word in the dictionary: torture by being hung from a rope, pulled up and dropped the length of the rope. This album's a whole lot more fun than that. I haven't used the word fun until now, that's the best word for this album.

I like “Strappado”; I wasn’t around back in 1986 when it was released, but I know for sure that if a band can believe enough in the most basic chord progression, they can make their listeners believe in it too. “Make way for the Incinerator!” Check out in particular “Disintigrator/Incinerator”, “Tortured Souls”, “One Foot In the Grave” and “Strappado”.