In Slaughter Of Natives — In Slaughter Of Natives

First released in the late 1980’s, In Slaughter Of Natives' self-titled debut presented a dense & layered album which brought together elements of death industrial, martial classical, blacked EBM, dark ambience, and general flair for detailed/atmospheric production.

Here from Austria’s Infinite Fog Productions is a CD reissue of the album. It comes in a glossy black six-panel digipak, which features two examples of man killing man/ in battle classical paintings, and minimal grey/ gold texts.

Slaughter Of Natives is the one-man project of Sweden’s Jouni Havukainen- he formed the project in 1985, but it wasn’t until the end of that decade that it started releasing material- first on Cold Meat Industry, then later on Cyclic Law. To date, the project has released ten albums.

The In Slaughter Natives self-titled debut appeared on a C40 tape on Cold Meat Industry in the year 1988- this had an edition of four hundred and fifty copies. It has since gone on to have around ten or so reissues- taking in vinyl, CD, and tape releases.

Surprisingly, for an album from the late 80’s, it sounds largely undated, aside from a few of the textures/ tones/samples used. I think it’s down to the decidedly packed and detailed production of all of the tracks.

On the whole, the eleven-track album is both varied and consistent with its track layout. We move from the stabbing & bounding beats, sampled choruses/ choirs, speech layering, wiry and devilishly darting synth keys of “Death, Just Only Death”. There’s “Cryptic Slaughter” which is built around a swooping bird of prey call & locked churning/ corrupted horn element. And the dramatically swoon orchestral hits, bleak male choirs, and talking about serial killers dialogue samples of “Structure”.

In the albums later half, we move from sinisterly jogging electro beats, coldly stabbing synths, and hushed/ harsh whispered male vocals of “Punishdown”. And steadily stabbing orchestration, tight marching percussion, and hazy textual flows ‘n’ roast of “Dusk Of Hope”.

I was, of course, aware of In Slaughter Of Natives back in the late 80’s/ early 90’s- seeing ads for their releases in underground zines/ etc. But I'd unfairly lumped them in with the rest of the Cold Meat Industry camp, which at the time largely did little or nothing for me. And more fool me, as this debut album is a layered and effective blending/ blurring of several post-industrial genres, so I will most certainly be checking in on the rest of In Slaughter Of Natives' back catalogue.