Assassinate the Following - Massacre of the North (2009)

Assassinate the Following is a young Canadian band which meshes a variety of styles into a form of progressive thrash/death metal. While there aren't many direct comparisons I could draw, at times I am reminded of bands like Protest the Hero and Between the Buried and Me. At their best, the band is quite forward thinking and capable of writing some great, flowing licks and memorable hooks. Unfortunately, the album is burdened by hideously bad chug chug post-Earth Crisis metalcore mosh parts and vocals that range from the generic North American Phil Anselmo tough throat style to cleaner bits reminiscent of the clean parts from Shadows Fall.

I don't want to bust on the band too harshly, because there are some moments on the album where they would shine if only a few components to their sound were altered. Listen to the glorious riff opening "Fight to the Death" and how quickly it is devolved into generic mosh pit grooving. Then, only seconds later, it transforms into some pretty good technical melodic thrash metal and then back again into garbage grooves. This is a really frustrating effect which permeates many of the songs on this album. "The Sweet Taste of Nothing", "Controller" and "Hand Made Holocaust" all feature some great riffs utterly destroyed when the band breaks into their quizzical chugging. Guitarists White and Torok are very talented, and also handle the vocals. While the cleaner vocals have their moments, they are just as often annoying, and the metalcore style is just bad throughout.

Massacre of the North sounds decent for a self-released debut album, all the tones are crisp and the riffing sounds good at its most adventurous. Obviously these guys are better than the weak pit grooves and dime a dozen vocals would have me believe. The evidence is here. With a different vocalist (or vocal style) and a focus on their melodic, thrashy material as opposed to the very bland ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch that you could hear from any shitty metalcore band at the bar Friday night, Assassinate the Following could be really good.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/assassinatethefollowing