The Malvern Hills are good, but have you seen Mount Slatra? Instead of those yonder green undulations, the Worcestershire Tourism Board may soon be using four thrash metallists from Worcester to flog the Midlands county.
Mount Slatra are: Ben Alexander (drums); Ryan Darling (vocals); Aaron Watkins (bass); and George North (guitar). Their tagline for their appearance at Worcester Music Festival was ‘thrash metal band providing loud and fast live shows’ – a tautology akin to saying that Reform Ltd are a vehicle for division and hopelessness. How about ‘thrash metal that’ll make you more breathless than Meg Ryan doing her 150th take in ‘When Harry Met Sally’? No? OK then, on with the review…
A glance at the titles of Mount Slatra’s releases from last year may lull you into thinking that the band are safely tucked within the conventions of the genre: ‘Soul Thief’; ‘Cult of the Heavens; ‘Fists of the Fallen’; Divine in Ruin’. However, behold new single ‘5×5’, which takes prison communication as its lyrical inspiration. 5×5 relates to the grid used by prisoners to tap out messages letter-by-letter – a sort of more tedious Morse code. “In the coldness of killing / Goes the author of hate / Convincing the willing / Dictating their fate,” snarls frontman Ryan Darling. Tapping those words out would take you a week, so be grateful that you can purchase ‘5×5’ and hear the words instead. Musically, the track shares the murkiness of Motörhead, the urgency of Slayer, and the belt-out-the-chorusing of Metallica.
Mount Slatra will be headlining Slaughterhouse Festival in Birmingham on 2nd May. Given the political focus of ‘5×5’, perhaps a better tagline would be ‘Full Metal Whack It’. Or perhaps just buy the record and enjoy yourselves.
5×5 is released on all streaming services on 27th April
Mount Slatra: Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Review by Neil Laurenson
Keep up to date with all new content on Joyzine via our
Facebook |Bluesky |Instagram | Threads | Mailing List
1 comment