Slam, simplistic as it gets, barbaric, primitive, and not entirely unproblematic — somehow, it keeps drawing me in. Every January I go dumpster diving and the promise of just anything set to slams, be it any gimmick or weird lyrical concept, is usually enough to make me check out the worst that the depths of Bandcamp can serve me. This must be somewhat universal as the concept of a themed slam EP with samples loosely relating to the given subject matter has is not foreign to the genre. Today´s specimen, the NASCAR themed SLAMTONA 500 by Richmond, Virginia’s Restrictor Plate, drew almost 7000 other slammers on Spotify in. NASCAR is not the most distinguished among car racing categories, and the lust for violent accidents seems to be present in the fanbase, so what initially seems like reaching conceptually actually is more fitting than expected. The samples provide a decent amount of entertainment value, but I could just turn the safe search off and do a Google video search — what matters is how the album sounds.
It is common for these of gimmick slam EP´s to be just… fine. It is tough to even find words to describe the EP beyond calling it slam. My first point of critique is that the songs often sound a bit stitched together, with the classic trick of hitting a cymbal after an abrupt stop to transition into a breakdown being rather overused. Second, the vocals could use both variety and go for a different, less comical tone. The vocalist sounds constipated, as if he is clenching his microphone with the force of a thousand suns. These vocals neither sound all that impressive nor all that barbaric, presenting monotony without getting an unhinged or raw effect from them in exchange. SLAMTONA 500 is not even 15 minutes long, but already feels like Restrictor Plate is stretching their sound with how similar the material feels. SLAMTONA 500 is exactly what I expected — a gimmick slam EP with the absolute most average score it can receive.
