Macabre Albums (5)
'Morbid Campfire Songs/Murder Metal'
Release Date 2/22/2005
Tracks 18
Label Season Mist America
See Album Tracklist and Review
'Murder Metal'
Release Date 10/7/2003
Tracks 13
Label Season Mist America
See Album Tracklist and Review
'Sinister Slaughter'
Release Date 8/3/1993
Tracks 20
Label Nuclear Blast
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Macabre quickly increased its cult following with Sinister Slaughter by bringing an element of thematic engagement to otherwise above-average death metal. This entertaining source of engagement comes via the song titles and the accompanying lyrics; much along the lines of Cannibal Corpse, Pungent Stench, and Anal Cunt, Macabre writes genuinely perverse songs about the sort of taboo subject matter that is appalling yet undoubtedly intriguing. In the case of this album, the Chicago trio bases each of its songs on a different psychopath; for example, the opening track, "Night Stalker," is based on Richard Ramirez, just as the next track, "The Ted Bundy Show," is based on Ted Bundy. Sure, this is a juvenile concept, but when as seemingly tongue-in-cheek and as well-executed as this, it becomes a unique and quite charismatic attribute that helps to differentiate this album from the glut of other death metal releases churned out by globally reaching independent death metal labels in the mid-'90s. (The album cover's satirical take on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, picturing each of the psychos, only helps.) So even if the music isn't necessarily as timeless or influential as something like Entombed's Left Hand Path or Napalm Death's Scum, and even if Macabre isn't as downright serious as a group like Morbid Angel or Deicide, in the end, this album has become somewhat of a cult classic, right alongside other perverse classics like Cannibal Corpse's Tomb of the Mutilated and Brujeria's Matando Gueros. [Nuclear Blast re-released this album in 2000, adding the four-song EP Behind the Wall of Sleep.] ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
By 1989 when this album came out on Vinyl Solutions and quickly circulated around Europe, Macabre had been in existence for a few years and had developed their sound beyond the proto-death metal found on their shoddy debut, Grim Reality. Not by any means is Gloom a masterpiece and may not even warrant the status of being a landmark album -- if anything, it's simply an important album. Like Grim Reality, the music on Gloom isn't exactly genius, and it's hard to get past the murky production, yet one must once again consider how pioneering such brutally fast music and such perverse lyrics were for it only being 1989. By being a template for the evolving death metal genre, Gloom awarded Macabre a cult following, and it also set the stage for the group's eventual breakthrough with Sinister Slaughter [The original version was released on Vinyl Solutions in 1989, who then re-released the album on CD with tracks from Grim Reality in 1990; Decomposed then re-released Gloom in the late '90s]. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
