
|


Rating:
8.0 |
Shatter Messiah - Never To Play The Servant 28 August 2006
01. Never To Play 02. Crucify Freedom 03. Fratility 04. Hatred Divine 05. Fear To Succeed 06. All Sainted Sinners 07. Inflicted 08. Drinking Joy 09. Bad Blood 10. Blasphemy Feeder 11. Deny God 12. Disillusion 13. Bleed To Shadow 14. New Kleen Killing Machine
Some of you here probably already know Curran Murphy but if you don't know him yet, you have to know that this guy was one of the guest guitarists of Nevermore in the past and was also one of the last guitarists of the Canadian act Annihilator. After those different adventures Curran had finally decided to build his own combo. Its name is Shatter Messiah and if you like Power Thrash a la Nevermore, you'll probably like a lot this newcomer.
Yeah my friends, if you like progressive "US" Power/Thrash, you'll like the first album of Shatter Messiah. Composed of two unreleased EP, "Never To Play The Servant" is for me one of the good surprises of the year 2006. Like with Nevermore, the music of Shatter Messiah is composed of Heavy Technical complex riffs with in addition amazing guitars soli. Also, if it's always really complex, it's also really catchy with these kind of great Thrash riffs that will stay in your head. You'll be able to find also a weird dark and tortured atmosphere on the majority of the songs and that's really cool. A bit like Warrel Dane, Greg Wagner, the singer, is able to sing with a clean beautiful voice but also with a thrashy and a Death Metal one.
The production is excellent and believe me, you'll discover some great musicians, especially Greg Wagner a great singer who has the possibility to sing with a lot of different voices (and he is good to do it really!). The fourteen songs are all well composed, never linear this is pleasant to listen to this album. "Never To Play" is a perfect example of the quality of the release. With fast double drums, arpeggio, a big heavy riff and some nice melodic choruses, this songs is a real hit. On the other hand "Inflicted" is a bit more like a classic Thrash song but here again, the voice of Greg Warner gives a lot of variations and possibilities so at the end, it's just "different". Hoo anyway you'll see, that the albums is just varied and full of great songs (with some ballads too)… It just deserves all your attention even if I hope that the band will be able on their future albums to do a real demarcation with Nevermore.
Despite the musical similarities with Nevermore, "Never To Play The Servant" is a good Thrash Metal album. Different, with a bunch of great musicians who had a lot of good ideas in their musical inspiration to write this release, this is one of the Thrash Metal album of the year. If some of you will probably believe that it's a bit lacking of personality (yeah Nevermore again…), I have to say however that it's only a first album and when I see its quality, I have the best hopes for the future of the band. A good surprise that will have to be confirmed as soon as possible, fans of progressive Power/Thrash, this is for you!
|
Performance:
|
9 |
|
Songwriting:
|
8 |
|
Originality:
|
6 |
|
Production:
|
9 |
written by Jeff | 15.10.2006 |
|
|
|
Comments
|
|
| Comments: |
5
|
|
|
Users visited:
|
18 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| I heard this a while ago in a record store that deals in metal stuff and had to ask the guy who owned the place what it was. I thought it was Nevermore at first really tbh, but a little more aggressive. Is pretty good from what I've heard of it. Good Review. |
|
Lucas - 15.10.2006 at 17:06
|
|
|
| I just don't like this. Which is weird, because I love Nevermore to death. And because I want to like this, I'll listen to it again, and I'll be back. |
|
Lucas - 15.10.2006 at 17:35
|
|
|
| Ok, better this time. Still not as good as Nevermore, but I actually like it now. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| You can check out the new full-length song "Pathway" on the band's MySpace page here and the track "Buried in Black" at Falzano's personal MySpace at this location. |
|
Advertise on Metal Storm
|
Similar topics
Hits total: 3384 | This month: 27
|