By Avinash Mittur
When one thinks of epic concept records within the heavy metal genre, a few albums immediately come to mind. Operation: Mindcrime, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Nightfall in Middle-Earth are but a couple of the amazing records that have not only successfully told an entertaining story, but also delivered an outstanding collection of music. However, one album that always seems to be unfairly left out of that conversation is The Lord Weird Slough Feg’s Traveller. This album is a true epic in both a musical and narrative sense, and remains Slough Feg’s magnum opus. Ten years ago on March 24th 2003, Traveller was unleashed upon the world, and it stands as a masterpiece of traditional American heavy metal.
Mike Scalzi, the frontman and guitarist for this great band, is often seen as the lone mastermind behind Slough Feg’s musical vision, but to not acknowledge the contributions of the other musicians in this band would be absolutely criminal. The other half of the Slough Feg guitar team, John Cobbett, rips all throughout Traveller. Cobbett’s guitar duels with Scalzi are outstanding on this album- just check out their dizzying battle on ‘High Passage/Low Passage’ and their epic twin leads on ‘Vargr Theme/Confrontation (Genetic Prophesy)’. It’s almost surreal to think that Cobbett, who stood in Scalzi’s shadow on this record, would go on to become one of the most gifted songwriters in modern metal. Drummer Greg Haa lets loose with barreling double bass and titanic fills on ‘Asteroid Belts’, while bassist Adrian Maestas rumbles along with his busy lines. From album to album, the performances from the members of Slough Feg are consistently fantastic- Traveller was business as usual.
The album’s story is based on a role-playing game also called “Traveller”. Among other albums with unnecessarily convoluted plots, Traveller features a refreshingly easy to follow, yet very complex narrative. A space pirate turned mutant named Baltech, mad scientists, the rise (and fall) of a half-dog/half-man master race, and a subsequent war against humankind are all covered in the forty five minutes that Traveller runs for; it’s an utterly badass tale that kids would have pored over in the days of huge record sleeves with liner notes. Scalzi aimed for the stars with his lyrics, and he ended up flying right past them into galaxies unknown. The music manages to follow the story well, with the frantic ‘Vargr Moon’ serving as the backdrop to Baltech’s horrific transformation and subsequent escape from the mad professor, and the acoustic ‘Baltech’s Lament’ more than aptly showing the protagonist’s dejection at his present situation.
No other Slough Feg album sounds a bit like Traveller even though every one of them has had master engineer Justin Weis manning the board. Much like Iron Maiden’s Somewhere in Time, the album features a futuristic, yet very classic sound that gives the guitars a spit-shined, squeaky clean polish, and the drums a tight and punchy attack. Throw in a few laser sound effects, and you have an album that could be the soundtrack to an intergalactic battle a few thousand years in the future. These days “old-school” metal bands sometimes opt to go in a lo-fi direction, while others seek a razor-sharp machine-like attack. Traveller laughs in the face of both of those ideologies, boasting a production that is thick, meaty, and full of clarity but wonderfully free of digital sterilization. If Brocas Helm was given a blank check to use on the recording of Black Death, you can bet that it would have sounded a hell of a lot like Traveller.
There isn’t a whole lot more I can say about Traveller other than “go buy this album immediately if you haven’t heard it already” (now thanks to Metal Blade Records’ recent reissue of this album, there isn’t a better or easier time to do so). From the insanely catchy riffing on ‘High Passage/Low Passage’ to the record’s jaw-dropping climax on ‘The Final Gambit’, Traveller delivers the goods upon the first listen, and has more to offer with every subsequent spin. With their prior record, Down Among the Dead Men, Slough Feg proved to the heavy metal world that they were a mighty force. With Traveller, they went and kick started a legacy of some of the best traditional heavy metal the world would ever see. After ten years, Traveller is still a true adventure- if the lyrics don’t take your mind on an interstellar journey, the music undoubtedly will.