Lair of the Minotaur: “Cannibal Massacre” / “Horns of the Witch” (2005)
If you asked me to contextualize Lair of the Minotaur’s overall standing in the grand scheme of heavy metal history (go on, ask me), they probably wouldn’t make my list of top 1,000 bands, and I doubt most of my fellow metal-heads would rank them in the top 1,000,000!
But ask me to address their vicious, viscous and, yes, debilitatingly heavy guitar tone, and I might lift them into the top ten -- then, while I’m feeling lucky, bold, reckless, or all three, I’d slot their colorful moniker in the top 100.
Maybe it’s because of contradictions like these that I’ve felt compelled to collect everything I can from this uncompromising Chicago threesome (though they sort of lost their way on their fourth long-player, Evil Power), including this red wax, atypically 33 1/3-speed, 7-inch from 2005.
Though it boasts the same style of gory and grotesque cover art, plus the comparatively classy, circular labyrinth motif, as the group’s 2004 debut album, Carnage, its A-side, “Cannibal Massacre,” would actually feature on their sophomore effort, The Ultimate Destroyer, due early the next year.
But while multiple online sources, including Discogs and even the sleeve itself, call this an ‘Extended Skin Reaping Mix,’ exceeding nine minutes in length, my copy, at least, contains the very same version found on said LP, topping out at 5:46, to be exact.
Which, is all well and good, since the song is a beast: from its brief, tortured- scream intro reminiscent of Celtic Frost’s “Into the Crypts of Rays,” through its doom-laden voyage across the Mediterranean, to its bloody encounter with man-eating giants straight out of Homer’s Odyssey, and I quote:
“We sailed on, though sick at heart; Heavy rowing broke the slaves; On the sixth day, the sun didn't rise; As we headed from the East.
Then we came upon land of the Laestrygonians; Horrendous legendary fiends; These residents, an old children’s myth; The flesh of human men they eat.
Bloodbath! Skin reapers! Slaughter! Meat gatherers! Cannibal! Massacre!!!”
And I’m afraid the excellent B-side, “Horns of the Witch,” isn’t even available online, but it swims through a swampy muck of tortured howls, guitar feedback, and thrumming bass before exploding with bludgeoning riffs on its way to a blast-beaten finale.
All in all: this is a nice little 7-inch that may interest serious collectors, no matter how they choose to rank Lair of the Minotaur’s molten metallic onslaught.
More Lair of the Minotaur: Carnage, The Ultimate Destroyer, War Metal Battle Master.













