SNAPJAW – Murder Is Only Flesh Deep

Horror, in its soft and hardcore forms, was always an aspect related to any type of Metal, from Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13^th, Evil Dead and let’s not forget the brutal Horror B-Movies of Zombies, a whole lot of bodies and a wide variety of dying techniques. Snapjaw decided to take into account all of these components by making them their sole purpose in their music.

The Horror crew arose in Bucharest, Romania, how convenient for a Horror group to arrive from the homeland of the famous Count, in 2006. After a year of work on new material, the corpse grinders released their first demo, Thrash From The Crypt. In 2008 they released, by themselves, their single, Psycho Apocalypse which made way for their latest EP release, Murder Is Only Flesh Deep. This release continues the bloody and horrifying Thrash Metal route, which is influenced by 80s Thrash, especially Slayer of the late 80s but as a mostly mid –tempo superlative.

The whole production was a total band effort, which made a nice work and knew exactly how to fit the music and its atmosphere to their theme of lyrics and looks (just check out their MySpace page and you will see “Horror”).

On this recording the drums come first and they march on with power. After that comes the low end guitars a’la Slayer, which are played by two skilled axemen, Cata Psycho and Criss, the lead guitarist, who is in charge of some great “Hanneman & King” squeals and solo screamers that can raise the dead. Along with the guitars, there is the Bass guitar by the corpse painted Misu. Towering all over the group screaming, screeching and whining like a demonic fiend, comes the vocal man, who has similarities to Tomas Lindberg of At The Gates, a high pitched version of Lemmy and to the gruesome Marilyn Manson, Bony – and no, he is not cute with a devilish mask, crops of hair from above and skeletal gloves.

As a part of the band’s Horror show, they present the Metal world four pieces of music to be amazed from. Overall, the material is good, not thrilling as hell, but the group has succeeded in their mission in not giving you, any of you, a neatly good night sleep after listening to this.

The killing spree starts with the Slayer-ish “Peeling The Skin”. The title tells you all you need to know, somebody got killed and he is used for somebody’s digestion, but first you have to peel the skin. This title could be a great soundtrack for some Horror B-Movie full of Cannibalistic partying.

The second song is a Snapjaw tribute to the occult, “Devil’s Incarnated”. In this track they discuss Satan’s summoning and the result of being the fiend’s service slave. This number also joins the Slayer club of fans with great low end riffs and screaming solos.

Track number three, “Rot In Pieces” provides some interest. Aside from the fact that this track is the start of something new by Snapjaw, musically speaking, it takes a couple’s breakup two or maybe three steps ahead, towards the bloodbath part. A girl has broken up with her boyfriend and what does a boy have to do? He stabs her where it hurts (period hurts) and watches her rot while the maggots eat her flesh. In terms of music there is a nice combination of Nu-Metal type of bass and drums followed up by a soft guitar rhythm. All these play along with the finest addition of Bony’s maniacal vocal style.

Finally, there is the closer, “Maniac”, your friendly body parts collector of the slain and murdered. This song is not the best one to close the casket but it provides some enchanting solo moments by the fingers of Criss’s and great fast paced riffs.

Although Snapjaw’s themes will not be favored by many, from this end they did a great job and they should keep on telling these great Horror treats. To Thrash Metal, Snapjaw are not that new because of their Slayer roots but they provide this subgenre a well based Horror figure. So come on guys – record some new Horror for us Thrashers!!!