Album Review: Lair Of The Minotaur - I HAIL I
Reviewed by Rich Oliver
It’s been a good long while since we last heard from Lair Of The Minotaur. The trio from Chicago last released an album sixteen years ago with “Evil Power” back in 2010. Well it seems like Lair Of The Minotaur have not mellowed in those sixteen years. Far, far from it as the band’s fifth album “I Hail I” is an absolutely crushing and savage return.
Original member Steven Rathbone on vocals, guitars & synths is joined by long-time drummer Chris Wozniak and new bassist Sanford Parker for thirty minutes of crushing metal which mixes thrash, death and sludge together which is about as subtle as a spiked club to the skull. The album opens in no nonsense style with the punked up fury of ‘Emperor Of Dis’ and that momentum continues for the majority of the album with bludgeoning bruisers such as ‘Fucked Inside Out’, ‘Deepest Hell’ and the relentless title track and lumbering sludgy monsters such as ‘Saturnus Reign’ and doom-laden album closer ‘Tartarus Apocalypse’.
Despite its straightforward and skull crushing nature, “I Hail I” does have some curveballs with an unlikely cover of American singer/songwriter Ethel Cain’s ‘Family Tree’ which is given a ferocious metal makeover and ‘Vulture Worship’ which is a strange synth-laden piece which doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the album but it’s brief and the only misstep on “I Hail I”.
Whether you class this as a comeback album or not, it marks a very welcome return for Lair Of The Minotaur. It is a short but completely uncompromising album chock full of filthy riffs, disgusting vocals and pummelling rhythms. It is an album that will have a broad appeal to fans of doom and sludge as well as fans of thrash and death. “I Hail I” is a skull fracturing mix of High On Fire, Eyehategod, Celtic Frost and Bolt Thrower which will put Lair Of The Minotaur back on top when it comes to filthy fucking metal.
Interesting title. I’m curious how they blend death and doom—sounds like a heavy vibe.