Acclaimed Texas speed/death metal band Rigor Mortis plan to release their fourth and final album Slaves to the Grave on October 7, 2014. The first 5,000 CDs will include a “making of” DVD. The album will also be available on iTunes, Amazon, and limited edition vinyl LP.
Recorded in Feb 2012 at Ministry’s 13th Planet Studios in El Paso, Texas, Slaves to the Grave returns to the 1988 original first record line-up of Mike Scaccia – Guitars, Bruce Corbitt – Vocals, Harden Harrison – Drums, and Casey Orr – Bass.
The CD will be released at a Slaves to the Grave release show featuring Texas thrash legends Dead Horse at the Curtain Club in Dallas, Texas on September 27, 2014! The surviving members of Rigor Mortis — lacking founding guitarist Mike Scaccia, who passed away on December 23, 2012 at the age of 47 — will perform a set of Rigor Mortis songs under the name Wizards Of Gore.
While Slaves to the Grave is fully recorded, the band are soliciting donations to reach a $20,000 goal to enable them to tour. For more information, see the crowdfunding page for the album.
Wizards of Gore, Dead Horse, Dead Earth Politics
Curtain Club
2800 Main St, Dallas, TX 75226
214.742.6207
Tags: death metal, rigor mortis, Speed Metal, texas metal
From how Scaccia was describing this album it seems like a more uh… modern version of Rigor Mortis vs. The Earth but will also apparently have something for older fans (I guess that`s all of them actually lol). I will be getting it no matter how it is because I am that big a fan of Mike Scaccia and even vs. The Earth had Mummified on it.
This is fairly big news, even when Rigor Mortis petered out they never even close to hitting rock bottom artistically like a lot of bands do. I think these guys have, if not an album, at least a couple of quality songs left in them.
Rigor Mortis vs. The Earth was of better quality than history will remember but will be overlooked because it’s not an album per se, so much as a collection of songs that gives it that “leftovers” feel, and it has a comical cover from a band who never went in that direction. The tension within Rigor Mortis has always been to continue developing the style they invented or to regress to influences (punk, 70s hard rock, early speed metal). Their musical peak may well have been Freaks where Scaccia’s extended instrumentals gave the album power; missing were the distinctive and horror-themed vocals of Bruce Corbitt. Had they continued in that direction, they would have been ignored for ten years and then lauded alongside Voivod as proto-progressive metal influences. As it is, Rigor Mortis vs. The Earth resembles Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemonium in that the band is experimenting with different directions but never assigns one to the album as a whole, and it gets pulled apart from within by the contrary impulses of different band members’ interests (sort of a metaphor for modern society also). With the newer album, it seems to me the band is hoping to resurrect many of the musical changes they made for Rigor Mortis vs. The Earth but keep the intensity and consistency of the first album.
trystero, what do you think of Artillery?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8Aerz4GOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5nl4P4CUkI
Well I remember hearing a couple of tracks years ago from By Inheritance but I was just getting into death metal then and it sounded boring (superficially). I have the album now and I am going to listen to it. It doesnt really compare to the frenetic lightspeed strum, almost death metal songs of Rigor Mortis. Also can I reiterate how good Mike Scaccia was at writing solos? The virtuosity of his playing is about the same in both albums and Freaks but he kept getting more refined and using his skills appropriately instead of doing a Bodily Dismemberment every track like I am sure some fans wanted. Nearly every lead on Freaks is a full part of the song rather than an extraneous add-on (which they are almost never guilty of), or a show-piece seeming addition that is almost too climactic after the speed metal/punk song that preceded it (often guilty of this).
Contagious Contamination is the first Rigor Mortis song I ever heard and its pretty good but it doesnt come together nearly as well as even Cattle Mutilation on Freaks. The progressive element is lost or diminished. Even if that remains the case with this new release it will be worth getting if only for the memory of the man.
Now to start working on my Jeff hanneman/Mike Scaccia afterlife fanfic (hints: gay, peanut butter, teeth guitar, raining bud, welcome to your poo-neral etc.).