Search - Tribute to Slayer :: String Quart Tribute to Slayer

Interesting

C. Maltezos | Houston, TX USA | 01/07/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a Slayer fan seeing this CD for the first time, my first thought was that this was a long overdue idea. I wondered at the trouble of translating the sometimes repetitive nature of metal riffing to bowed strings, but otherwise it seems a rather natural transition. So, with much excitement I purchased it and slapped it into my CD player at the first opportunity. This excitement quickly changed to puzzlement as I listened to what turned out to be an unsatisfying realization of the idea.



There are ten tracks on this CD, all but one being surprisingly faithful covers of the Slayer versions (the one original composition being very much in the style of Slayer). While every rendition had its moments that worked just right, the rest of the time it seemed confused, lost and simply not going anywhere. Not to mention sometimes slightly out-of-tune (I suppose what works with a pair of heavily distorted guitars doesn't necessarily work with four acoustic stringed instruments). Frankly, the repetitious metal riffage during the verse parts turned out to be just as much of a problem that I suspected they might be. This was not at all helped by the violin following Araya's vocal lines. Altogether, it left me wishing they had done a bit more rearranging, perhaps cutting the number of verse repetitions.



There were a few standouts, the foremost being "Die By the Sword", which somehow worked all the way through better than any of the others. Other notable tracks include "Mindless Death" (the original composition) and "Mandatory Suicide". I had high hopes for "Dead Skin Mask", as well, but that one didn't quite work as well - probably in part due to the lightly distorted electric cello, which seemed out of place amongst the more natural sounding instruments.



All in all, it seemed an honest, but underdeveloped effort. Perhaps with a bit of arranging or with a group larger than a quartet, this would have been perfect. As it is, I must admit that I will be listening to it again. Maybe as I listen to it longer I'll warm up to it. As it stands, I agree with the previous reviewer in that it is probably a must for any die-hard Slayer fan, but don't expect perfection."