Review by Michael on February 2, 2026.

German deathers Slaughterday are back with their fifth full-length album. And because they are from Lower Saxony they don't play with good emotions like Saxon did with "Power And The Glory" but with some lowly sentiments which belong to a "Dread Emperor" (who would have thought with this image these days?).

Okay, that was not the best pun but for this the music turns out much better. Of course Slaughterday don't care to break out of their typical doom-death frame but with every single album they improved their style and added some more untypical stuff from that genre to their music.

On "Dread Emperor" you find a lot of classic Black Sabbath-riffs (which seem quite similar to their farewell album "13") like in "Obliteration Crusade". Hell, yeah, Autopsy did this already too but here it sounds more like the original.

Apart from this, the sick guitars in minor sound a lot like Iron Maiden had taken some drugs and would play their stuff half of an octave higher, just ugly and dissonant. It hurts in your ears, it feels uncomfortable and matches perfectly for this abomination.

But they don't offer that crazy stuff during the whole running time but are altering between that and some more crunchy, brutal death metal. Also this is nothing new for Bernd Reiners and Jens Finger but on "Dread Emperor" they have heaved their skills on a new level.

A good example for that is the title track. Here they play the usual doomy stuff but alone the introduction is epic, as it should be for an emperor who rides along his cheering masses. And the rest of the song spreads fear and terror with that dissonant, slow stuff.

My favorite track and probably one of the most straight-forward tracks is "Dethroned". Kicking off like some sort of Celtic Frost-worship (with that title not the biggest surprise) this one is a mid-tempo song with some cool catchy riffs and simple melodies that grip you by your balls instantly. This one is for sure the next live favorite of many Slaughterday fans. Fuck, yeah, that's almost death n'roll in some parts of the track.

As you can probably read, "Dread Emperor" has become a good album. And with the final track "Golem" the guys from the North Sea cover another German legend – Protector. It is always a double-edged sword to do a cover version but this one is really cool. Not too close to the original but you still know which song it is. Guest vocals by Martin Missy would have been cool here.

The last thing I would like to mention is the production. I don't know how often I've already mentioned Jörg Uken and his Soundlodge Studio but this guy is just amazing. The production is crunchy, super heavy and offers no point of criticism.

"Dread Emperor" is the first (early) highlight when it comes to death metal in 2026 and reinforces the status that Slaughterday has in the (German) death metal scene.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10