Review by Daniel for Cryptic Slaughter - Money Talks (1987)

I can still vividly remember my first Cryptic Slaughter experience. I was 13 years old & had just jumped onboard the exciting late 80’s thrash metal juggernaut. I’d developed a strong friendship with another boy in my class & we hung out after school most days. He was a very talented guitarist for his age & he began to teach me how to play. In fact, he even loaned me one of his electric guitars so that I could practice at home & we’d often jam around with his older cousin who was an Alex Van Halen & Charlie Benante obsessed drummer with his own place. One day we were listening to Anthrax’s back catalogue in his disgustingly filthy lounge room when I made a comment about how fast a certain passage was & this seemed to trigger a healthy dosage of scoffing from the two cousins. When I asked what they were laughing about they simply told me to strap myself in before placing a copy of Cryptic Slaughter’s 1986 debut album “Convicted” onto the platter. Needless to say that my mind was well & truly blown by the sheer velocity that was emitted from the cheap ghetto blaster speakers & I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn about metal. I’d end up quite liking the “Convicted” album & those feelings have been maintained over the years which has seen me awarding it a positive rating upon revisiting it earlier this year. It was arguably the fastest thing that had ever been released to the time & is worth exploring for that reason alone but there’s always been somewhat of a running debate in crossover thrash circles over which of the first two Cryptic Slaughter albums is actually the best. I always favoured the debut but it’s been decades since I last gave their sophomore album “Money Talks” a few spins so I thought it might be time to re-evalute that position.  

Cryptic Slaughter first formed in 1984 when they were still in their mid-teens. They all attended the same Santa Monica high school & their mutual passions for Slayer, Venom, Motorhead & GBH would provide the catalyst for the recording of a demo tape entitled “Life In Grave” the following year. This would see them attracting the interest of Metal Blade Records head Brian Slagel who would include the track “Reich Of Torture” on his “Metal Massacre VII” compilation in 1986. It was at this time that the Californian crossover thrash scene was starting to take shape following the release of DRI’s seminal 1985 album “Dealing With It”. DRI had relocated from Houston to San Francisco in 1983 & are generally regarded as the first band to successfully combine thrash metal with hardcore punk. Their fresh new sound would have a major impact on the thriving San Francisco thrash scene & would influence bands like Attitude Adjustment to follow their lead with their own debut album “American Paranoia” hitting the shelves in 1986. The other Californian crossover hot spot could be found in Venice with Suicidal Tendencies front man Mike Muir being the central figure in an exciting new scene that would spawn albums from not only his main band but also his Suicidal Records label signings Excel & No Mercy (Muir’s other band) in 1987. It was amongst this exciting new Californian music landscape that Cryptic Slaughter’s debut album “Convicted” would be created with Metal Blade house engineer Bill Metoyer in 1986 & it would prove to be arguably the fastest & most savage of the early crossover thrash records released globally. The band members may only have been very young but they made up for their lack of technical skills & experience with a raw energy & enthusiasm which would give “Convicted” an appeal that would draw in fans from both metal & hardcore punk audiences. In fact, it would also prove to be a major influence on the early UK grindcore scene with Cryptic Slaughter’s use of blast beats in particular being a major influence on grind acts like Unseen Terror & Napalm Death. The band would subsequently become known as one of the originators of that technique along with artists like S.O.D. & Repulsion. 

I wasn’t much of a hardcore fan at the time but the violence & electricity in Cryptic Slaughter’s music was able to draw me in & I'd find a fair bit of enjoyment in “Convicted”, despite it never threatening to usurp the Slayer’s & Kreator’s at the very heart of my thrash-obsessed teenage esteem. For this reason, I would chase down the band’s second album “Money Talks” through my high school’s black market tape trading network with the older skaters in the year above me generally being my source for securing quality crossover thrash releases. “Money Talks” would once again be released through Metal Blade who were nothing short of a US metal institution by this stage, having been responsible for releasing a whole slew of classic albums since their inception in 1982; Warlord’s “Deliver Us” & “And The Cannons Of Destruction Have Begun…”, Slayer’s “Show No Mercy”, “Haunting The Chapel” & “Hell Awaits”, Trouble’s “Psalm 9”, Omen’s “Battle Cry” & Fates Warning’s “Awaken The Guardian” being just some of the high quality output Metal Blade had been responsible for in the mid 1980’s. As was generally the case, Bill Metoyer would once again be responsible for taking the reins & he would be credited as co-producing the album with the band members themselves. Unfortunately the results would prove to be a little inconsistent in my opinion. “Money Talks” may possess more clarity than “Convicted” but it lacks the energy of the debut. It simply sounds less unified & focused & comes across as a little messy. Scott Peterson’s drum kit certainly sounds bigger & there’s good separation between the instruments with Rob Nicholson’s bass lines being easily discernable throughout however the main problem is with the guitars as they sound weak & thin & have much more of a sloppy punk feel to them than they did on the debut. This is one of the major weaknesses of “Money Talks” in my opinion & I find it strange that many people don’t seem to see it as an obstacle. 

The cover art for “Money Talks” was a definite improvement over the cheap school boy drawing we got with “Convicted” though with Jeff Harp from Long Beach hardcore punk outfit Final Conflict being responsible for the politically-charged image that shows Ronald & Nancy Reagan leading a money-driven campaign of lies & deceit over the American people. This DIY style of image would again provide the influence for a whole slew of similar record covers from UK grindcore bands over the coming years & it’s very much in line with Cryptic Slaughter’s lyrical approach which would touch on some very serious subject matter for a group of teenage boys. The huge influence that the local punk scene had played on this approach is very obvious.  

Where “Convicted” saw Cryptic Slaughter seemingly stamping their feet on the accelerator without ever even considering the option of easing it up, “Money Talks” sees the band adding a little more variety to their approach instead of trying to blast the listeners into submission from start to finish. There’s a stronger use of melody in this material which is highlighted by the employment of slower & noticeably groovy breakdowns within most tracks. Despite the fact that this sounds good on paper, the result isn’t quite as positive because when Cryptic Slaughter aren’t brutalizing their audience into submission they tend to leave their technical failings more exposed to criticism. Personally, I find the breakdowns to be very generic & I don’t think they add much value. I’d much rather see the band sticking to the higher velocity delivery of the debut to be honest & when we do see them dropping their shackles & going for broke they possess the same impressive levels of intensity. There’s a noticeable post punk influence to some of the more laidback bass lines which is interesting though & I find this to be a welcome inclusion. 

The performances of the various band members are very hit & miss & it seems to me that the blasting material tends to hide a lot of the deficiencies in the techniques of the young band members. There are regular timing issues here with drummer Scott Peterson seeming to struggle with the more mid-paced material. In fact, the band sounds like a runaway train a lot of the time with guitarist les Evans also contributing a very sloppy performance. It’s only the raw aggression of front man Bill Crooks that manages to pull the band out of the fire a lot of the time & he represents the clear highlight of the album for mine. He sounds nothing short of psychotic at times with his take-no-prisoners approach being just what the doctor ordered for a metal & punk audience that was now craving ever more extreme feats of human exertion. 

Despite the fact that “Money Talks” is generally regarded as a crossover thrash release, I have to admit that there’s really very little thrash metal included here (or metal for that matter). To my ears, it’s much more focused on a straight-edged hardcore punk sound in combination with the regular use of blast beats so I think the thrashcore tag is a more accurate description of the sound you can expect the hear. There’s no doubt that this contributes to me not rating the album as highly as the debut but the top heavy tracklisting has also played a part. All of the best material is laid on the table within the first four tracks & I find my interest tends to wander through the back end with the last few tracks seeming to peter out significantly. There are no real shockers included but I find it very difficult not to let the production & performance issues taint my listening experience &, for that reason, “Money Talks” has never offered me much appeal. 

For fans of: DRI, Attitude Adjustment & Wehrmacht