Savage Messiah - Plague Of Conscience review
| Band: | Savage Messiah |
| Album: | Plague Of Conscience |
| Style: | Heavy metal, Thrash metal |
| Release date: | January 20, 2012 |
| A review by: | Doc G. |
01. Plague Of Conscience
02. Six Feet Under The Gun
03. Carnival Of Souls
04. In Thought Alone
05. All Seeing I
06. Beyond A Shadow Of A Doubt
07. Architects Of Fear
08. The Accuser
09. Shadowbound
10. The Mask Of Anarchy
In a world where thrash metal seems to be steadily leaning more and more to the harsher side of things (Warbringer, Toxic Holocaust, Skeletonwitch, etc) it's pretty nice to hear a more melodic step-back. Granted, this isn't an extremely vicious album, but who cares? It seems it's becoming just too easy to write steam-rolling thrash. Some times, it's just nice to hear thrash that can just...soar.
Don't let that fool you though, thrash is thrash. It's made for top-speed aggression. Sure, Plague Of Conscience isn't teeth-shattering aggression, but more of that epic lead-based thrash. It flies like power metal, but generally drives forward with a little more kick. The best way to picture it is some US power/traditional heavy metal hybrid with a thrash metal engine. It's got its fair amount of revivalist touches, but Savage Messiah manage to deliver it in a youthful enough way to not sound completely flavourless.
There's leads, then there's riffs. Plague Of Conscience is an album of leads, and that's where it falls a little flat. There's such a total focus on creating that top-speed, high-flying sound, that they come up short when it comes to delivering the basics; riffs to bang your head to. Here's the part where they should have taken some tips from their harsher contemporaries; this album seems like a lot of flash, and no crunch, far too often. Where there feels like there should be some great riffs layin' down the lead, there seems to be a big hole that was filled with some generic thrash rhythm section.
Overall, Plague Of Conscience is not a bad album. If anything, the band should be commended for focusing on their strongest aspect; awesome guitar leads. It just would have been nice to see them fill those in-between moments with something a little more engaging.
Rating:
6.0
6.0
|
Rating: 6.0 |
While thrash metal has always been a very enjoyable subgenre of metal, revivalist bands have been so boring over the past few years that the genre has had very few new things to offer. Count in Savage Messiah, because Plague Of Conscience fails to offer something original. When it comes to a description of what the album sounds like, we can be very simple: imagine a combination of Testament and *insert other legendary thrash metal band* with a touch of power metal. Savage Messiah does what almost every thrash band does that has been formed in the last decade: they make music that reaches back to the old days of thrash, copying the style of a certain band or blending the sound of multiple bands. They specifically try to make thrash metal, instead of just writing the music that comes from their hearts, while not paying attention to what genre it will be categorised in. Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 9
Visited by: 187 users
| strade Posts: 677  |
Yep, I agree. That's literally the exact score I'd give it.
---- My lo-fi synth project: http://luciddreamer.bandcamp.com
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| R'Vannith ghedengi Elite Posts: 3099  |
Agreed about the US Power angle. There is a massive difference between this and the previous release. As much as like I US power though I have to say I prefer when they were closer to the purely Thrash side of the ballpark.
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| Edmund Fogg Posts: 1752  |
Yah stumbled on these guys yesterday. The Cover Art drew my attention, bot for the music all I could think of is Imagika does it better. Didn't like it.
---- You cannot sedate all the things you hate - MM The Observer is the source of reality - Bloom God damn it!! What did Diddy didn't do? - Satan
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| wormdrink414 Elite Posts: 1295  |
Written by strade on 23.01.2012 at 05:47 Pretty much same here. There's a lot I like on this, just nothing I'd opt to revisit very frequently. Prefer the more aggressive styles from the bands listed in the first paragraph over soaring-ness.
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| GothMan Posts: 7  |
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| NLthrasher Posts: 189  |
Damn, I wanted to review this one. Very good review though, I totally agree. I think I would have rated it like half a point higher myself.
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| RavenKing Posts: 1941  |
This album has a few Thrashy parts here and there, I won't deny it. But, calling this Thrash? Come on. It is much closer to Powermetal than Thrash. Maybe we could label this as Power/Thrash but not simply as Thrash.
---- They shake your hand and they smile and they buy you a drink They say we'll be your friends we'll stick with you till the end But everybody's only looking out for themselves And you say who can you trust I'll tell you nobody
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| Syk myspace/bonerama Posts: 1504  |
If I're in a good, generous mood, after 1.2 listens, I'd give it a six-point-something. But I'm not, so a 5 it is  Very well reviewed, I might add. I agree on many points. In this kind of melodic/anthemic hook-based metal, the hooks need to be stronger, and more variety in the vocal melodies would help - as would some more, slightly-less-predictable drum-thrashing. Highlights are 7-9, midsection of 7 especially... thought Carnival was really gonna take off, but it didn't... I'll queue it up again one day after I've had some more sleep but don't expect to be wowed more than once (Architects climax, yeah! More o' that!) edit nearly 2yrs later - now rated at 6, I actually might agree with the Doc's final score, and I'm looking forward to the new one being released on my bday
---- death ? thrash ? death/doom/prog ? Hail Zoldon! he's not the kind you have to [url=../bands/album.php?album_id=28982]wind up[/url] on Sundays
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62004  |
I like how you comparing this whit melodic side, I agree but it don't means its bad, actually its good
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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