Reviews list for Macabre - Sinister Slaughter (1993)

As someone who normally shuns lyrics, I must confess that Macabre are not anywhere near as entertaining without their hilarious lyric sheet close at hand when listening to any of their records.  For the uninitiated, Macabre write exclusively about serial killers/murderers and take a spoof stance on their song content.  Example:

Mary Bell

In nineteen sixty-eight

An eleven year old girl named Mary Bell

Killed four year old Martin Brown

Two months later, strangled Brian Howe

Mary Bell, child from hell

Where are you now?

Are you doing well?

This simplistic (maybe childish to some) sense of humour appeals to me all day if I am honest and although I will not pretend to listen to Macabre all that often, they are a welcome reprise from the usual death metal content that although may have similar themes, they  usually take them far more seriously.  I view Macabre as something of very dark comedy palate cleanser from the usual worship of Satan or general political angst that dominates my usual listening habits.

Like I said above though, this is not a band I go to in order to wonder at their technical prowess and sonic wizardry.  I mean this guys are not prehistoric in their playing ability by any means (check out that proggy passage in Vampire of Dusseldorf) but I am not here to score them on musicianship.  Generally, one sitting of any Macabre release is enough for a while.  After 40+ minutes of this release I was ready to get back to my regular fodder and there being 21 tracks made it feel a lot longer than it actually is.  At about the halfway point I stopped reading the lyrics and just let them trio bash and grind their way through the remaining tracks.

For entertainment value alone, Macabre are in the higher end of the scores but if we consolidate that into the content then the longevity soon becomes questionable.  Worth checking out if you have never heard of them and like me have a dark sense of humour but if you like your death metal/death grind taken seriously then you probably want to look elsewhere for your kicks.