Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Exhorder - Slaughter in the Vatican (1990)

The obvious vocal similarity aside, I see little in the way of comparable elements between Slaughter in the Vatican and Cowboys from Hell, the latter of the two releases for me far outreaches the debut effort from Exhorder and I think they are two very different sounds in fact.  Notwithstanding the fact that I grew up with Cowboys... and it was instrumental in defining my journey into metal so it is unlikely to be ousted from the top spot anytime soon.

Again, as with my thoughts on Rust In Peace, I find Slaughter in the Vatican to be overrated.  I feel little in the way of any compulsion to revisit it much after the odd play it gets now and again, but this isn't because it is a bad album more the case that I just don't feel captured by it.  There's riffs and chops and hacks all over it, equally the energy levels are consistent and the musicianship is tight enough to carry it all off.  I still don't get anywhere near the levels of excitement from it that the various reviews on the internet seem to indicate are present.

I think part of this is the "cult" status the album seems to enjoy as being another band that did groove metal around the same time as Pantera did and this I think has led to the unnecessary and inaccurate tag of "underrated classic" being applied to the album.  To these ears at least it is not that and the record just needs to be acknowledged for its solid base and equally robust structures that occasionally break out into well paced and aggressive thrash metal to grab my interest.  Unfortunately though the majority of this record just passes me by.