The Slaughter'ing' Of The Wild Life.

In an earlier post on Slaughter's "Stick It To Ya" (add link) I mentioned that this band was the first group that I discovered without outside influence and will always be dear to me. At the time I was quite taken by the band because their debut was very good, however upon my first exposure of Slaughter's sophomore effort "The Wild Life" I think I died a little inside.

The album is not bad and I enjoy several of the songs, but there is a commercialism in the sound and an over-produced feel. The album is chocked full of sound effects and sound clips and such that draw away from the solid rock foundations. There are some great tunes here that could have been better if they were simply left alone.

"Reach For The Sky" kicks off the album with a darker, bleaker mood while also setting the stage for the pounding hard rock rhythm of the rest of the album. "Do You Know" ends the album on the same note with an eerie bleak feel and a chaotic outro. "Times They Change" though dark is a not as bleak as the previous songs and features a guitar riff reminiscent of Zeppelin's "Battle Of Evermore". It's one of the better songs and not a bad move forward for the band.

The title track feels like a rocker with a darker rawer sound, where as the big party numbers feel forced and cheesy. "Out For Love" and "Dance For Me Baby" are both catchy, but sound over-produced and the guitars lack punch. As with "Move To The Music" which is a little cheesy, but loads of cowbell! These songs have thunderous rhythm sections and seem a little too over the top. "Shake This Place" which is probably my favourite song on the album, is more straight forward hard rock and more of what I'd expect from Slaughter. It's super catchy and a great party tune, but ~needs more Cowbell!~.

The ballads are decent and varied. "Real Love" is the first song I heard off this album played live on Letterman or Leno or one of them there late-night talk shows which threw me because I've never seen any other hard rock bands on those shows. It's a catchy song, but mechanical sounding. "Hold On" is more straight forward, but nothing innovative.

"Days Gone By" has a 60's vibe and quite different then what they've been doing (the acoustic instrumental version as a bonus track is nice). "Streets Of Broken Hearts" is my favourite of the ballads and is sappily catchy in lyrics and music.

The other bonus track "Old Man" is old school blues with an Aerosmith feel and is one of the cooler tracks here.

I like this album as I do Kiss's "Crazy Nights". They are not great, but are hooky and catchy enough to keep me coming back. I just don't like the commercial sound and the weak rock edge of "The Wild Life". As I said in my other Slaughter post, I just couldn't stick with Slaughter after this album. I tried with their 2 follow ups, but what it comes down to is simply, I don't care. I really like their debut, but they moved in a direction that I didn't find appealing.

However, Slaughter has the opening track on "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" soundtrack and is a brilliant song whose style is what "The Wild Life" album should have been. I'll delve deeper next week when we join Bill & Ted as they "Go To Hell".