EXHORDER — The Law (review)

Album · 1992 · Thrash Metal

4.5/5 · 2015-07-31
Vim Fuego

Following up an amazing debut album is no easy task for any band. Debuts generally contain songs that the band has been perfecting for years up until their first album is recorded. After that, in many cases like Annihilator, Forbidden, Xentrix, Body Count and numerous others, the cupboard is bare. A weaker second album follows a strong debut, and everyone is disappointed. Not Exhorder.

Many fans of the band prefer 'The Law' to 'Slaughter In The Vatican', and with good reason. Where the first album was unbridled aggression vented in all directions, 'The Law' keeps organised religion squarely in the crosshairs.

Some of the sharp edges evident in the first album have been filed down. The unbridled aggression present on ‘Slaughter In The Vatican’ seemed more focused on ‘The Law’, still taking aim at organised religion, but with a little more subtlety. The guitar sound lost a little of the raw chainsaw quality, but is heavier, and fuller in the bottom end. Kyle Thomas' vocals have far more melody to them. That's not to say he sounds any less pissed off, but Thomas actually creates some singable melodies.

Exhorder were Spinal Tap–like when it came to bass players. To that end, guitarists LaBella and Ceravolo played all the bass on the first album, and all but one track on the second. Their new bass player, Franky Sparcello played an amazing slap bass backing track to "Un–Born Again", which was all he had time for, joining the band in the middle of recording. At the time, there was a big trend toward so–called "funk metal", but this didn't follow the trend. Far from being a plain bass track, slapped instead of picked, Sparcello runs up and down the fretboard with incredible dexterity, augmenting Chris Nail's jazz-trained thrash drumming. Unfortunately, that's all Sparcello ever recorded with Exhorder.

There are a number of highlights on this album. There is a hint at Kyle Thomas' post–Exhorder stoner/doom band Floodgate, in the form of an excellent cover of Black Sabbath's "Into The Void". "Unforgiven" is an exercise in dynamics, using pace and rhythm to excellent effect. Never a band afraid of doing something different, the final two tracks are an instrumental in "Incontinence", and "(Cadence Of) The Dirge" which is well, a dirge. It is a bleak, oppressive song, displaying the dark depths of hopelessness, sorrow and self–pity.

Lost in the flood of Floridan death metal and the emerging Seattle grunge explosion, Exhorder missed the recognition they deserved at the time, and self–destructed after the recording of 'The Law'. However, Exhorder are now fondly remembered, perhaps because the band quit with a solid body of only two albums behind them, and had not tarnished their reputation. There was no hint Exhorder were going to abandon metal, but there was the potential to further mix in jazz, funk, stoner, doom and any number of other elements. Who knows what would have happened.