LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR – the ultimate destroyer

(CD, Southern Lord)

Ever wondered why there are so little metal-records reviewed on the Cracked website? Well, because there are so little worth mentioning. (And sometimes a simple lack of time, but that is reason for all musical genres.) Of course, a new album by Slayer will get words, but how often does that happen? And a more interesting question is: why does it seem like in the last years the best releases on metal labels are non-metal records (like Dresden Dolls on Earache or Earth on Southern Lord)? Well, here is were we do some re-tribution to the genre and it is all thanks to this undogmatic powerhouse of pure metal power from Chicago, who were so nice and filled their second album with a bunch of completely rocking and shredding metal-blasters. And even if nice is not the word most mentioned in metal reviews, I don’t believe the analogy of heavy music / evil lyrics means evil people for one moment. These dudes like nice folks. Who’d dare say they ain’t? I guess they are able to take a laugh, even if the joke is on them. So there, nice music by nice people? Well, actually it is a monster.

On “the ultimate destroyer” the three trash through various kinds of riff-infested metal-styles, all of them with a firm root in the most iconoclastic metal band of them all: Slayer. Degrees of density and distortion vary from high to higher to punching the needle out right of the red area but that is all well and dandy. More importantly – and that is a progressive step away from Slayer – they don’t peruse guitar solos, rather invest a little more thinking in adding a new part or structure into a song. That might be a scream-choir as in “Juggernaut of Metal” or the echo-chamber usage during “Horror”. They might fall into a hacking static trasher in 4/4 rhythm for some time, as in the beginning of “Behead the Gorgon” or add some moshpit-inducing riff-staccatos as in “Grisly Hound of the Pit”, anything to give the headbangers some variety. (I am not sure if the mosh-pit is meant in that track’s title, but it might as well fit.) They even go for the slow-mo pounding to start off the final track “The hydra coils upon this wicked mountain”. Maybe that is the best part about Lair of the Minotaur’s vision of metal: to provide variety and focus with each and every track. Isn’t too often that happens.

Most of you, if interested in metal that is (I promise I won’t pound on this fact for any longer, the next metal review is right around the corner and it will be as straightforward as I can possibly manage), will remember Lair of the Minotaur as the one metal band that instead of singing about satan, mysoginy, butchery or defecation has chosen greek mythology as their subject de jour. This adds some nice spice to the lyrics, but as far as I can judge with my limited knowledge of greek mythology this is far from accurate. Some of the ideas conveyed and some of the more artistic liberties taken (cannibals! Demons, Gorgons) draws the images into the direction of a game of “Warcraft” gone terribly wrong. On the other hand, calling a song simply “horror” has its own unique beauty and sense.

With metal I am mainly interested in the impact of a band hacking out the same tone without end in full blast. The style and hairdos aren’t at all important to me. I don’t judge bands by the extremity of their appearance or contents, because that is all blind glitter anyway, but by their musical abilities to create an atmosphere and sound that is able to impress me. There is more than enough redundant music out there and a good deal of it comes from the metal scene. Lair of the Minotaur are able to do that, and well on top. Monolithic metal that will greatly widen my dose of Pig Destroyer and Mastodon. Thinking about it, what I might be judging after all is not the band but the man recording, mixing and mastering these albums. Here it is Sanford Parker and Scott Hull. Now that does ring a bell.