Band:	Shatter Messiah
Album:	Never To Play The Servant
Style:	US power metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	August 28, 2006
A review by:	Jeff

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!