Master are prolific and consistent. Originally based out of Chicago, vocalist and bassist Paul Speckmann relocated Master to the Czech Republic where they channeled their aggressive anti-establishment driven sound towards the USA from the Balkan state. Master's first and second albums - Master (1990)and And On The Seventh Day God Created...Master (1991) - are underground gems: intense death-thrash with the odd quirk and melodic touch. Part Motorhead, part Autopsy. An Epiphany Of Hate is the 13th full-length release in Master's consistent speed machine and it's an example of a band who know their instruments and the weight and power of their music like the back of their gnarled, old-school hands.
An Epiphany of Hate is frantic throughout. Ear-splitting and intense, it's got a reasonably clean and full sound but it's never sterile; the hazy chaos and natural anger still filters through. There is a melodic touch and a thrash-like playfulness throughout: songs pick up pace and groove with a gravel-like consistency as dual-guitars soar and squeal and riffs progress and the drums weigh in like frenetic jackhammers.
There is certainly remains a violent death-metal edge to the music, however. Speckmann's vocals are particularly malicious, grunting like a rabies infested dog-zombie from one song to the next. In 'Friction Soon Becomes Reality' he spits and froths with an incessant dread that can't be stopped. The vocals in 'An Epiphany Of Hate' morph into something out of a Cronenberg movie: pig-like snorts and inhaled rumblings merge with a hardcore-punk forthrightness. Speckmann is a great vocalist; there still remains a legible human quality to them and, similarly to Autopsy and Obituary, a real sense of emotional vulnerability that a lot of contemporary death-metal, on the whole, seems to lack.
There are a lot of memorable moments on this album: 'Face Your Fear' quite literally breaks down towards the end with guitar strings warping and wobbling as the song is tasered to a stop; 'It's Clearly Eden' breaks in to Morbid Saint and Demolition Hammer fury with catchy lyrics and a solid groove and the album closer 'Red Alert' journeys from a traditional mid-paced sound to a frantic thrash extravagance as dirty solo leading on to dirtier solo in a grittier Megadeth-esque fashion.
An Epiphany of Hate is 44-minutes of extremely well-crafted death-metal. The album is littered with memorable moments. Speckmann has an knack for songwriting and an ear for melody that many more 'traditional' death metal bands seem to lack. It has the intensity of death-metal, the aggressive political stance of hardcore-punk and the playfulness of speed/NWOBHM. A very enjoyable album.
Dystopia is very good. It has the energy and diversity of a rejuvenated band; Mustaine seems more intense and angry throughout, his vocals seem gruffer, his snarls more menacing and the tone of the album as a whole owes more to the angsty political persona of early Megadeth, heavily influenced by hardcore-punk bands like Fear ('Foreign Policy' is a Fear cover). Kiko Loureiro and Chris Adler are a near perfect fit for this refreshed sounding Megadeth: Adler's rhythmic and frantic pedaling brings back a pummeling speed-thrash edge and Loureiro's progressive-eccentricities (he has three writers credits on the album) brings about a rather flamboyant and creative touch.
It's a diverse album with tempo-changes, spiralling solo after solo, acoustic passages, melodies and groove galore and, I think to it's minor detriment, there is perhaps too much indulgence, or if not indulgence too much going on; the speed-thrash aggression pops up from time to time and that intensity mixed with progressive touches is when Megadeth are at their best, but too often it does not maintain that intensity, rather it slows down to a more groovy, still quite angry, and melodic NWOBHM-esque sound. It's ultimately down to taste, the slower tracks really aren't bad at all.
The first three tracks, the three singles, maintain a thrash-energy that permeates from song to song; 'Dystopia' is a great Megadeth song with a melodic groove and sleak transitions; it has an underlying aggressiveness that seems genuine, not forced. 'Fatal Illusion' opens with a crunching riff leading in to Ellefson's punchy bass popping into the mix alone segueing to dual guitars and the trademark Mustaine snarl: It's well written and certainly heavy-metal, a long way from the hard-rock filth that was Super Collider.
Following on, 'Death From Within' seemed a little uninspired, it's steady and bland riffing littered with quite interesting licks, the drumming interesting, but it was all quite conventional; it didn't quite manage to reclaim the energy from the previous songs, although this would probably be the best song on Super Collider.
'Bullet To The Brain' illustrates the importance of an imaginative rhythm guitar; Kiko and Mustaine interplay, they are both near-virtuoso's and they're not afraid to flaunt it: the solos soar and switch between dramatic and frantic, soft and forceful, the guitars sing as they harmonise and fluctuate back and fore. Kiko and Mustaine really seem to work well together. And Kiko's influence is even greater on the next three songs - 'Post American World', 'Poisonous Shadows', and 'Conquer or Die!' - as Kiko is attributed, along with Mustaine, with writer credits. These three tracks feel a lot more different: the acoustic opening to 'Poisonous Shadows' is a well-placed rest, there is an atmosphere that doesn't feel too cheesy or forced. The three songs have that progressive-power metal eccentricity that one attributes to Angra. But, and this one of my few gripes, my issue is that, although these three tracks are decent enough, they seem to stop the album in its tracks; it feels a bit plodding and less furious. 'Poisonous Shadows' is the closest thing to a ballad and, although not bad, is that what we really want from a Megadeth album? We know the band have so much potential, and they've shown us that with some of the previous tracks, so hearing this shift in tone is a bit of a let down. (Still better than Super Collider).
The rest of the album though, following on from the instrumental 'Conquer or Die!' is fantastic; it really sounds like old-school Megadeth at times and, with shitty 80's production values, I'm sure Dave Mustaine could try and palm off a few of these songs as once-lost-now-found unused studio recordings from Peace Sells. 'The Emperor' is another fun, fast-paced melodic gem; it's cheesy and eccentric and idiosyncratic with fantastic musicianship and catchiness (it even has a Tom G Warrior ughhh thrown in): isn't this all we really want from life?
It’s maybe not a good thing that my two favourite tracks on
first listen were covers: ‘Foreign Policy’ a cover of 80’s hardcore-punk band Fear
and ‘Melt The Ice Away’ (a Spotify bonus track, so it probably should not
count, but I listened to it as part of the album before realising) a Budgie cover (Welsh hard-rockers from the 70’s). Before knowing this I had noted the punk-thrash simplicity of 'Foreign Policy' and it made sense after finding out it was a cover. Even as a cover it's a fantastic track, each member really shines through. The same can be said for 'Melt The Ice Away', Chris Adler in particular has some great fills.
All in all I am pleasantly surprised by this album. I was expecting it to be good based off the singles and based off Mustaine's recent return to a reasonable level of sanity. It really does have that unpredictability and diversity that Megadeth do so well: solos melt in to solos, solos fuse into grooves and eccentric bridges, bouncing bass interludes merge with gruff snarls and diverse drumming. It's extravagant but still espouses an 80's thrash-hardcore-punk sentiment that Megadeth seemed to be missing before. The lyrics, I find, still make me laugh - more likely cringe - at times, but this is Dave Mustaine, he's more of a stereotype, a cardboard cut out of a rock-star these days; he seems a bit more normal but he is still an anomaly. Dave Mustaine is a concept, an idea, a feeling, a movement deep inside of us all; he is human - well, half-human half-robot - and so I can forgive him.
Age of Nefilim's debut album, released in November of last year, is a treat for the ears. I'm not sure how I would accurately describe it without spiralling into a blackhole of over-the-top similes and comparison, so this review is going to be over-the-top and excited, suitable for this type of album. This is a genuinely fun album: Destroy All Humans meets Rick and Morty meets Kang and Kodos meets Abe's Odysee. This is what Carach Angren would sound like if they had been abducted to the Land of the Watchers. Technical death on top of video-game, dungeon diving, hack-and-slash soundtracks.
The artwork caught my eye initially as I scrolled through the cosmic-plains of the interwebs, the music abducted me upon listening and I woke up this morning compelled to write this post. Intergalactic swamp symphonies reminiscent of Bal-Sagoth and Summoning form the backbone of this album; it's less power-metal, less flat and more space-age, simply more well produced; according to the gospel of Metal Archives 'it is especially noted by the band members that one of their greatest influences in their composition is Nubuo Uematsu, the composer of the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts soundtracks.' I can hear this here, the sonic soundscape is varied and refreshing, but that's not to say that the fundamental extreme metal elements are not up to scratch.
There is a very clean, tech-deathy production throughout which complements the epic, alien landscape that Cataclysm in the Land of the Watchers creates. Inhuman brutal drumming does make way for more textured accompaniments; the guitar work is epic and imaginative in scope reminiscent of Obscura, guitar leads sweep and sing throughout, intricacy and brutality interplay; vocals are one of the albums strongest forces: gurgled snarls, brutal-death croaks, black-metal shrieks and slow moans (think Dark Fortress) but most engrossing are the symphonic elements that connect it all and differentiate this album from being another clone.
'Poached from Forests and Fields' has a punchy string based base, a flute-like sound meanders, thrash like gang vocals at a few points emerge, runescape-esq trumpet sounds crash through the gurgled vocals - frantic drumming and fun riffs aplenty The entire album is made up of these inter-playing nuanced sounds; occasionally ambient passages silence the extreme metal, at other times they merge as one to conclude with epic, dramatic scope the end of songs such as 'The Flood Swept There Over'.
And overall I really do think that the album flows, it's not too jarring at all.
If you want something fun and creative, something that doesn't take itself seriously yet retains a technical proficiency and care for the craft, this is an album for you.
Supersonic Pig-Destroyer trapped in the matrix, glitching and writhing in a tortured bionical state; a modulated robotic dystopia, brain in a vat type stuff, floating in a jelly-heavy fluid as men in lab coats and laughing men in suits and shades feed wires under fingernails and beneath eyelids. Chaos induced artificially: Agoraphobic Nosebleed - spearheaded by guitarist and drum programmer Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer fame - are an inhuman species.
This new song, 'Deathbed', from their upcoming album Arc (Scheduled for release on the 22nd of January) is less sonic and electronically pounding, relying on a more gritty, dirty, human vulnerability. It's still monstrous and cloying -with elements of a futuristic cyber-grind torture always threatening to break through - but with a more guitar-led focus: slow doomy riffs make way for groovy stoner riffs that maintains an oppressive nihilistic edge like that of doom titans Electric Wizard. Vocals are more prominent; in place of a chaotic and mathy dissonance is a more raspy, straight-forward aggression that reminds me of the haunting vocals of Indian and Lord Mantis.
Judging by the artwork, this album is giving me a post-nuclear disaster feel where civilisation has been grinded down and stripped bare. Within this context this change in style makes sense.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed also released another track a few weeks back, a seven-minute sledgehammer of a song: 'Not a Daughter'. It's a nuclear warhead heavy bluesy-doom track that would slot nicely into early an 90's Melvin's album. You can listen to it below.
