UMUR
"Born to Slaughter (A Bloodsoaked Prequel)" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders. The album was released through Art of Stench Records in August 2019. The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders was active from December 2018 to August 2019 and released no less than nine EPs and one full-length studio album in those months. "Born to Slaughter (A Bloodsoaked Prequel)" concluded the large number of releases put out in just a few months.
The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders is a one-man band consisting of prolific Swedish death metal musician Rogga Johansson. Johansson is involved in a large number of different death metal projects, and his release schedule is arguably one of the most busy on the scene (often releasing dosens of albums with different projects each year). The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders is a project born out of the interest to tell more stories about the two murderes (The Cleaner and Mr. Filth) Johansson first sang about on "The Van Murders" (April 2011, Vic Records) album from his Ribspreader project. "Born to Slaughter (A Bloodsoaked Prequel)" is as the title suggests a prequel story about the early years of the two murderous villains.
All previous material released by The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders (the nine EPs) have been compiled and released on the two compilation albums "The Collector 1" (May 2019) and "The Collector 2" (August 2019), but the 8 tracks on the 26:10 minutes long album are exclusive to this release. The album download and the physical version of "Born to Slaughter (A Bloodsoaked Prequel)" however features the bonus tracks "Executioner Hood Homage" and "Executioner Hood Homage Part 2", which were featured on "The Collector 1" and on "The Collector 2" respectively.
The album opens with the instrumental keyboard/synth B-horror movie track "A Bloodsoaked Theme" before "Burning Rubber, Burning Flesh" kicks in with the old school Swedish death metal style already established as the sound of The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders on the previous EP releases. The vocals are nicely sick and depraved with both deep growling and snarling aggressive growling, which provides the music with the right gory effect. Heavy beats and brutal meaty riffs are some of the main ingredients of the sound along with the growling vocals, but Johansson also plays quite a few gloomy melodic leads/harmonies, which suit the material well and bring some variation to the album.
The album features a suitingly raw and brutal sounding production job, and upon conclusion the slightly more raw sounding production values (compared to the more clear sounding producions of many of the preceding EPs) suits The Cleaner and Mr. Filth's Van Murders music exceptionally well. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.