Slave Zero Reviews

Metal Ireland

http://www.metalireland.com/2009/12/02/slave-zero-roi-exempt-from-all-tolerance/

Slave Zero are part of the furniture when it comes to Irish Metal. They’ve been plugging away since 2001 or thereabouts, releasing more or less full albums rather than demos. Most of the time their enthusiasm has at least paid off, and in some cases done rather better than that too. The fact remains though that they’ve been ploughing a furrow that has already had its muck raked a hundred times.

The band have reaslised this with ‘Exempt From All Tolerance’ and gamely taken on new influences. Mostly these consist of crust and grind - and instead of getting ever more bloody, they’re nowadays sounding harder, tougher, and thankfully, more relevant. They had to update, and they have. Old mingles with new in here. The technical crustiness of ‘Engineering Opportinities To “Ordain” The Innocent’ gives way to a solo section absolutely full of Death’s ‘Spiritual Healing’. The same can be said for its excellent outro, which again referecnes that classic cut. Everywhere else though, it’s a lot dirtier than it used to be. So much so that it actually mirrors the transition Abaddon Incarnate have made in recent years. The mix of pig grunts, squeals, growls and a smutty low vocal reminiscent of Phil Anselmo around ‘Trendkill’ make for an angry delivery far removed from the death metal norm.

Being completely honest, this was at first a difficult and off-putting listen. Like Cephalic Carnage - from whom they’ve taken a huge influence - too many riffs, it seems, are jammed together in an effort to be as jittering as possible. That may be technically exciting, but we all know that it doesnt result in great songs.

Over time though, and with a bit more volume as well as a better understanding of what’s going on, the songs begin to mature. One can begin to appreciate the point of the riff overkill, seeing how it contributes to nervous, angry energy of the subject matter.

The band still have work to do. They’ve made this album deliberately quite inaccessible. Where that will probably endear it to those fans of Willowtip records and other incurable grind heads, the general metal listener may struggle to give it the time it requires. When it gets there however, rest assured it stands up - the question is, do people have the attention span?

3.7 / 5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 02/12/09