Album Review: Gladiator - Made Of Pain

Gladiator - Made Of Pain

Skvrna Records - 1993

8/10

In the last decade of the 20th Century, Czechoslovakia would produce what I call a Sepultura clone to a tee. When I say Gladiator's debut Designation sounds like a replica, I mean I'm unsure I'd be able to tell them apart had I not known the Brazilian mold as well as I do. A year later, one country became two, and the now Slovak outfit would cough up record number two, containing the littlest bit of identity evolution. Don't misread me, as the debut was competent and strong, but it was tough to find anything worth distinguishing. That is not the case with Made Of Pain, the record I truly care about.

Retention of the death/thrash attitude under the slightest tweaking of atmosphere would make for a less noisy gradient in exchange for a mildly flatter delivery. Moreover, stepping only a year deeper into the '90s would reveal an ear for the so-called "groove metal" sound that was taking shape, also only to a tiny degree. Often times this may be a turnoff, but I saw this as giving Gladiator something that felt like a personality, as these tiny tweaks can produce a myriad of blends. With that, the more gruff attitude in vocals and tones shaped the muscular skeleton of the debut without feeling like tough-guy-core.

With this also came a tighter songwriting, which I noticed right away. "Sound Of Deep Silence" comes to mind, using a calmer pace to its advantage, working in groovy but advanced hooks with intricate drum kicks. Meanwhile "Warsouls" jumps all over the place, inserting softer licks and random melodies into a tune otherwise comprised of breakneck speed metal riffs and shifts in tempo. It could have come off very awkward, but it didn't. Hell, even the inclusion of a piano and string section in the beginning of "My World" flowed with this wonderfully, before it broke-down into a bass-heavy stomper; I swear these slower songs are the more interesting ones.

Perhaps it's nothing groundbreaking, but Made Of Pain is truly a well-written, well-crafted, and well-delivered slab of east European fury under a focused scope. They really capture the energy of war and misery that many of their death/thrash counterparts mastered while finding an identity on the second record. I'm truly thankful for having come across this outfit.