After hearing Tefilla's Grievous Anguish and then reading SORG's review where he compared Salutary so much to Tefilla I decided not to go out of my way to get this album. As it is the CD has come through my hands and I couldn't be happier that it did!
Salutary does indeed play nothing more than what you call THRASH, and hey that's quite alright with me. With Violated Holiness they do not approach the tightness of thrash that Believer brought us with their early albums, but never the less this is thrash for the true thrash fan!
I can't help but think of Betrayal every time I listen to this CD, and with as much as I loved both Betrayal albums that's a welcomed thought. It's true enough to say they are mid-paced most of the time (but then again so was Betrayal) yet they pour the speed on, not just to show it can be done, but rather they do it at the point in the song when it's needed. To beat the Betrayal comparison to death, the vocals even sound VERY similar to B's early albums with the exception of the second vocals that come in briefly during track 4 which sound just like Steve Rowe vocals from the days of Post Momentary Affliction.
Lyrically these guys are as solid as their thrash and you can tell most of it without the lyric sheet! Production is the only place I see that this release suffers. It's not that bad on the studio tracks and really with the live tracks (which are recorded much better than MANY live tracks I've heard) the vocals and drums suffer the most.
Overall a good album that I really enjoy listening to if for nothing else than the first 4 tracks. This CD coming my way was certainly a wonderful surprise, I suspect many others out there will be as blissfully pleased as I am when they finally hear it.
8/10
Other coverage for this album
Dead Zine 2002Reviewed by SORGIt seems that Fear Dark (the label that brought us Tefilla) is getting pretty consistent on putting out average (or to some listeners, below average) thrash bands. Salutary falls well into the category of an "average thrash" band. The music is mostly all mid-tempo chugga-thrash with some fast parts thrown in here and there just to show that they "can do it" but every time a fast part starts it…Similar sounding releases
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