Slaughter

Eternal Live (CMC)
by Scott Hefflon

First, the polite part: this record is dedicated to guitarist Timothy Patrick Kelly, who died in a car crash on February 3rd, 1998. To quote bassist Dana Strum, “This album is Tim’s farewell performance. And I think he’d be pleased that his last recordings were not just in the studio, but were with our fans there, too.” And that’s the thing about Slaughter – boy are they nice guys. And boy do they love their fans. As they should. While every other falsetto-screaming cock rockin’ quintet has been left in the dust to get haircuts and start dressing like guys for a change, dammit, Slaughter still seems able to attract an audience. Strangely, one of their many anthems is “We’re here, get used to it,” and I have to wonder if their fans get the irony of the omission. Not that I’d say the boys were queer, of course, but with a voice that high, ya gotta wonder if maybe Marky shouldn’t wear such tight trousers. He makes Vince Neil sound like Leonard Cohen.

Perhaps you get the impression that I don’t like Slaughter. Well, you’re right. While I have stacks of embarrassing music I still, ya know, kinda guiltily like, I’m proud to say Slaughter was never one of my lapses in judgment. OK, so I have the two Vinnie Vincent records that acted as a launching pad for Mark Slaughter’s crystal-shattering career, but that’s cuz Vinnie was an ex-Kiss guitarist, I swear! Not that that carries much weight anymore, come to think of it. While many, shall we say, “easily-swayed” consumers were sucked in by the band’s clean, good looks, and fun, rather unchallenging music and lyrical content, I never saw much appeal. While many (young, impressionable, and rather cute, I must say, girls) tried to make me listen to and appreciate them and their lyrics, I never saw them as anything other than rhyming generalizations with stereotypical themes people are supposed think are universal. Yeah, whatever. I just wonder about a band whose fans have a prepubescent vocabulary and emotional attachment to the world around them (and this is not necessarily age-specific), not to mention the performers who keep feeding them this nice, fluffy junk.
(5226 Greens Dairy Rd Raleigh, NC 27616)