Massacre - Back from Beyond (2014)

Stagnation is stagnation. No matter how many coats of armor it's clad in, no matter how you attempt to further 'brutalize' it, a death metal album cannot work without some balance of quality riff composition, morbid or malevolent atmosphere, or at the very least some head-spinning level of technicality or complexity which forces the listener's brain into a series of mental acrobatics. Funny enough, Back from Beyond has none of this, it's simply a pure 'ca$h in on the fact that we were a death metal band signed during the formative years of the genre' reunion which offers absolutely nothing new or credible with its formulaic, exhausted riffing progressions. That it's an obvious 'sequel' to Massacre's decidedly average 1991 debut From Beyond, arriving to strike when the iron of death metal nostalgia is hot, only serves as emphasis to its dubious nature, and about the only thing in its favor is that it's nowhere near as awful as the shitty sophomore Promise. But that's faint praise, because:

One Direction is not as shitty as Promise.
Li'l Wayne is not as shitty as Promise.
The Last Airbender was not as shitty as Promise.
Having the Earth and everyone and everything you love on it incinerated simultaneously by a solar flare might arguably not be as shitty as having to listen through Promise.

As you can see, Massacre and I have not always had the tightest of relationships, but the worst I could say for From Beyond was that it was 'just alright'. An early 'also-ran' record, sure, but there were only a few coattails to ride on at that point. Not the case with Back from Beyond, which is more or less an effortless doppelganger of decades of traditional death metal. And I mean effortless...Rick Rozz could hardly have spent more than mere moments conceiving such predictably insipid note progressions, and if you've already heard the Condemned to the Shadows EP from 2012, there's almost no point in tracking this down, since those are by far the best tunes here and the rest is monotonous filler with samey sounding rhythm guitars, and vocal patterns that are rarely distinguishable from one another. Of course, if you've listened to Autopsy, Death or Obituary's material from around 1987-1990, there's not much point listening to Massacre in the first place, but that goes without saying. This completely lacks the ambition one could hope for in a band who were around in the old days, and in fact the whole thing seems like its merely struggling to achieve the level of its 1991 predecessor, and settling for a comparable result. It goes a little too far in its quest for 'purity'.

I'm not as offended by the lack of Kam Lee as some purists will be, because the guy was never one of my favorite growlers, but he's moved on to better bands; not to mention Edwin Webb functions close to a modern analog for that sort of grotesque, sustained guttural. But this is so far below the gruesome character exhibited by a John Tardy, Chuck Schuldiner, Chris Reifert, Martin van Drunen or Paul Speckmann during their primes that it might fall out the opposite side of the planet. Likewise, the chords and tremolo picked guitars, as meaty as their tone is, are unshakably bland, patterns that have all been done to death (rimshot) countless times whether we're talking Benediction, Bolt Thrower, Death, Obituary or 72 other bands from the early waves...not to mention the myriad of newer aspirants to the throne of banality. I mean, on a purely production level, I don't have many complaints...the bass is loud and raunchy, the guitars fleshy, the drums accurate and struck powerfully, and the vocals cut right across the instruments, but Back from Beyond is just so devoid of creativity and passion that it seems like it might have just been assembled by robots as some sort of distillation of 'death metal' principles meant to teach children what the genre sounds like.

It hits harder than From Beyond did, but not in any meaningful way...drum and guitar tones just sound so much brighter and more voluminous than they did 24 years ago. The fact is, no matter how heavy it tries to come across, the vacancy of quality songwriting holds it back. Even the leads just feel like sound effects that escaped the Leprosy recording sessions, and have no interesting structure to them. A real failure to launch here. 6-7 minutes and just two songs of this on that previous EP were decent enough, if not exceptional, but hearing them plugged into a 45 minute framework with 14 songs that almost all sound similar beyond the one minute dark ambient intro. Didn't anyone in the band listen through this batch of songs and think to himself 'we could use a little more variety'? By about 10-15 minutes into the album, it was nap-inducing, but by the time I finished, it was practically torture. It's unfortunate, because I almost always want these old timers to kick some ass, and teach the newbies how it's done, but judging by what I'm hearing on this, Massacre seems to require that lesson themselves. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard by a landslide, but sadly you hear one cut from this and you've essentially heard them all; they should be capable of better.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

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Massacre - Condemned to the Shadows EP (2012)

Many have probably followed the bickering between Kam Lee and his former band mates who remain in Massacre; I haven't exactly read up on the drama, but for whatever reason, the opposing forces haven't reconciled their differences, and the 'comeback' release features instead one Edwin Webb in the vocal position, as well as a new drummer in Mike Mazzonetto. With Condemned to the Shadows, a two track EP, the band are more or less attempting to reconcile themselves with a fan base starved for the old school, and thankfully entirely ignoring their 1996 abortion Promise (hands down one of the worst metal albums I've ever heard), so we can all rest a little easier.

The sound here is pretty much a straight continuity with the From Beyond album which dropped over two decades past, and the Inhuman Condition EP which followed it. I was never a huge proponent for the band, greatly favoring their contemporaries Death and Obituary, whose albums Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy and Slowly We Rot best defined that old Florida sound alongside Morbid Angel in the late 80s. Though were active pretty early on, Massacre still felt to me like something of an also-ran, and the riffs and song structures were never quite so creepy or memorable. Truth be told, I had a similar reaction to the tracks presented here. While the execution is competent, and they fully embrace the atmosphere of the 80s decade recordings, eschewing polish, progression and technicality, the writing doesn't seem to accomplish much more than that.

Let's give this quartet some credit, though, because for what it's worth, they flex all the chops one would expect of a Florida band during the dawn of death. Rozz's riffing is muscular, between sepulchral chugged patterns and an occasional lurch into morbid death/doom, and he glazes the gloom with a number of screaming miniature leads and effects that truly contribute to its atmosphere. The rhythm section is 'beyond' fantastic, in fact I'm not sure the drums and bass in this band ever sounded so good: Butler keeps his lines dextrous and interesting beneath the rhythm guitar, and Mazzonetto is quite the find with a lot of solid fills and a very live aesthetic to the production of his kit that feels genuine and energetic. As for Webb, he doesn't attempt to rock the boat too much here, there's a fair share of Schuldiner and Lee in his inflection and he can efficiently alternate between yawning chasm growls and a few salacious rasps.

If I were to judge this music on its production alone, I'd have to say I was fairly impressed, because they sound as rejuvenated as a freshly risen corpses out to do their zombie master's bidding. The music is dark and crushing, the intent is pure. As far as career necromancy, this is a feat on par with the newer Autopsy releases, and I probably enjoyed this just as much if not more than anything the band has previously manifest. It's a complete 180 from the bullshit in the mid 90s, and fans who really love their old records should find it much to their inclination. That said, the songs here didn't push all the right buttons in terms of their actual note progressions, the riffs seemed like mere retreads and not so interesting. Assuming the band's recording a new full-length in the near future, they'll have more breadth and variation to work with, but these 8 minutes were not wholly satisfactory. Not bad, though, not at all. They've got the acting down, they simply need a better script.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

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Massacre - The Second Coming [DEMO] (2008)

Though its demo status and sound quality might serve as a barrier to those seeking studio level output, The Second Coming is nonetheless the best of Massacre's body of work. Until Hell's Headbangers re-issued it in 2008, though, there was very little means by which to get your hands on it (the material was avoided for the Tyrants of Death compilation a few years prior). Originally offered to their then label Earache in 1990 for appraisal, this is a Massacre that might have been. A beefier, death/thrashing hybrid entity which delivered far more on the riffing skills than the incarnation most would come to know with the lacking From Beyond album or Inhuman Condition EP. Sadly, it earned a red light from the label, and Kam Lee and crew were sent back to the drawing board.

Now, just because I said this is the 'best' of Massacre, doesn't mean it's the bees knees, or worth going out of one's way to acquire. What you've got is a pretty standard thrash affair with more similarities to S.O.D. and early Sacred Reich than the Florida death metal of the members' peers. Lot of meaty mosh rhythms that permeate "The Second Coming" or "Mangled", pretty much built for tough guys. The riffs are bouncy and fun, and the bass is dialed up thick, perhaps too thick when Butch Gonzales starts slapping and popping like an asshole during "Devouring Hour". You do get the occasional death metal breaks in the rhythms, mostly in "Bleed to Death" or "Psychopain Trip", but without Lee's association with bands like Death in the scene, I doubt anyone would categorize this as death metal. As for Lee himself, he uses this angry tone redolent of Rowlf from the Muppets, if he were pissed off and packing projectiles and sharp objects, but he does have a unique character about him, and also lets out a few noteworthy screams (as in "Mangled") that kick ass.

In summation, The Second Coming is not really the Massacre that would go on to its (undeserved) cult status, and it's got a handful of issues. The bass too dorky in spots, the actual riffs not that standout, but the overall atmosphere is furious and sure to have old school 80s thrashers into Nuclear Assault and S.O.D. breaking out their hi tops for some shit kicking. I can sort of see where Earache were coming from in rejecting this: thrash was phasing out of style by this point, and they wanted more extremity (i.e. death metal). That said, I enjoy this a little more than From Beyond because at least its not just a third rate (if not terrible) bite off Death, Obituary and other death metal bands that had grown popular at the time. I was able to connect with this material a sliver more, and I wonder if they would have ultimately gotten a more favorable reaction in the thrash genre.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

Massacre - Tyrants of Death (2006)

While I can't claim Massacre has ever penned a song or album of due significance, their presence around the dawn of the 90s and the accumulation of ex-Death members into the lineup would pretty much ensure that the band stand the test of time as a cult notion. By that token, its a wonder that it took a decade beyond the unfortunate abortion that was Promise to release some sort of fan package. The band had been understandably cast into the shadows of brutality, but Iron Pegasus brought forward the Tyrants of Death collection just a year before nostalgia would take its course, Kam Lee and his fellows reuniting through the ensuing years for several sparse gigs.

Tyrants of Death does what this sort of compilation is supposed to in presenting the band's formative demo material into a convenient space and format for both old school admirers and inquisitive, younger fans, but it does not do so completely. The Aggressive Tyrant and Chamber of Ages demos (both 1986) are presented in their entirety, but The Second Coming (1990) is absent. Granted, that would get its own re-release in a few years, but it seems rather arbitrary to separate the stuff, even if its from different phases of the band. The remainder of this release is padded out by some live material recorded early in Massacre's career (1986), in their native Tampa, Florida, and an unfinished recording of "Cryptic Realm".

Admittedly, the demo material itself has a crude, crass character to it which I find superior to the full-length album versions of several of these songs. Lee's vocals are ripping and raw, while the bass and drums seem incredibly driven and brutal for the day, and both Allen West and Rick Rozz's guitars (from the separate demos) sound fucking crazy. It gives you that same, primordial appeal as the first time you experienced Slayer or Possessed, which in my opinion is simply all the more memorable and biting next to the tidier From Beyond. Of course, a few of the tracks ("Chamber of Ages", "From Beyond", "Symbolic Immortality", "Cryptic Realm") were once more recorded for that album, but here you get a handful that you've likely never heard, and the Aggressive Tyrant demo cuts feature West's Hellhammer-like tone, primeval and punkish with wild leads cutting through.

On the other hand, the live tunes tend to suffer from a weak mix in which the vocals and guitars dominate the rhythm section, but for 25 years ago one can suffer through it. Prior to the live version of "Aggressive Tyrant", Kam sends a shout out to a 'Dave Vincent' who has come down to see the show. Peculiar. There are also a pair of tracks in this setting not redundant from the demos: "Perpetual Domination" and "The Traitor", the former of which bleats out a steady, Obituary styled groove; and a live version of "Corpse Grinder" (the Death tune) is included. This is pretty much straight for the collectors and fans, and its approved by original members of Massacre like Kam Lee and Michael Borders, born of legitimacy more than an empty cash grab. I won't say that the writing is all that great even on the non-album stuff, but it wasn't unpleasant to experience another forgotten gem in the crown of this long lauded Florida scene.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

Massacre - Promise (1996)

It would be misleading to qualify Massacre as ever belonging to the upper crust of Florida death metal, because despite the duration of their stay in the underground, they were little more than a facsimile of ideas manifest by better acts. Signed for their obvious affiliations and the frenzied interest in their scene more than anything else, but at least there was an air of authenticity around their earlier releases From Beyond (1991) and the Inhuman Condition EP (1996). Well, this air very rapidly turned to smoldering exhaust when they next ventured into a studio to release what must be the most abusive and abysmal contract filler feces slinging in all Earache history. Having not cared much for the band to begin with, I never would have thunk I could ever be 'disappointed' with a Massacre record, but Promise is such trite shit that it is anomalous, and throughout this entire project of re-exploring Florida's death, it is hands down the worst studio album.

Let's be clear: the only element you can trace from this to the debut album is the fact that Kam Lee and Rick Rozz are returning to their respective roles of vocals and guitar. Correction, Kam Lee is PURPORTEDLY present on this album. He has claimed in interviews that he never finished the vocals, quit during post-production, and was not involved in the final product. Otherwise, it's an entirely different sound, pedestrian groove metal delivered with minimum effort. Say what you will about bands like Pantera and Biohazard, they at least put considerable work into their releases, where Promise has the musical merit of a hurried trip to a public restroom. Each of its nine originals evokes some pathetic guitar riff well below the talents of Rozz and the new rhythm section, and at best you're going to get a curvy, whacked out lead (i.e. "Unnameable") amidst the effluvia of this creative sewage. Meanwhile, Kam Lee (or whoever this is) grunts above this sluggish mess, hymns of woe related to what must be the most pathetic topic imaginable. You see, Promise is essentially a concept album about getting dumped or betrayed by a woman. I confirm it's a woman because one of the tracks ("Where Dwells Sadness") contains a hypothetical conversation between the vocalist (referred to as 'Kam' at about :26 into the track) and some proxy succubus. It's like a Stabbing Westward record, only that band at least had a small handful of hooks in their favor. Massacre does not...

How do get from Inhuman Condition to this album? And what's worse, why in the world would Earache ever have released it? I'm not necessarily opposed to change if it benefits a band, molds them into something more memorable than a previous incarnation would have yielded. But this is beyond pathetic. The lyrics suck like the angered musings of a 12 year old hesher spurned for the 6th grade school dance. Whether this inherent bitterness was authentic or not, it conjures no appreciable imagery aside from the cussing out of the 'bitch' through primitive prose of loss and betrayal. For fuck's sake, Britney Spears songs are more substantial. But set against a backdrop of such vapid, bouncing bullshit riffs, their irritable nature becomes somehow compounded. I am forced to reconsider that this album was nothing more than a joke. There is simply no means by which rational musicians could take it seriously. The problem is that it's not funny. Not even the cover of Concrete Blonde's "Bloodletting", which might have been interesting in some other context, but here stands as some uninspired Type O Negative interpretation.

Shame, shame, SHAME on everyone involved with this abomination.

Verdict: Epic Fail [.25/10] (you didn't leave me shit)

Massacre - Inhuman Condition EP (1992)

Intent on carving a name for themselves among the stalwarts of budding brutality, the ex-Death cavalcade known as Massacre capitalized on their lukewarm debut From Beyond with a smaller collection of songs in the following year. Steve Swanson, who would later go on to Chris Barnes' post-Cannibal Corpse project Six Feet Under, was added here in the second guitar slot, and the band would continue to pursue pretty much the exact same style as we would expect, a peripheral mirror to the sounds beings produced by Death in their prime. You can't exactly fault them for such, after all, they WERE the backbone of 'that other band' during the wealth of its emergence. Once again, Massacre uses a rather gaudy Ed Repka cover image, reminding me a lot of one of the covers for Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, but at least superior to the funhouse effect of From Beyond's vortex riding beasties.

As for the tunes, three of the four here are originals, some of which have been recycled from the earlier years of their incarnation. "Provoked Accurser" had been issued as a one-sided 7" in 1991, an astute waste of plastic. "Plains of Insanity" is an earlier track from years before ever being signed to Earache. "Inhuman Condition" itself is the newest, sounding a lot like a Leprosy standby in tone, sans the effectively evil guitar passages. However, I will admit that I like the new, morbid depth to which Kam Lee takes his vocals, almost overwhelmingly guttural and alien. The leads are also kind of sweet here as they dodge and dice through the matrix of rather drab rhythms. "Provoked Accurser" is slightly more brutal, and the rhythm behind the lead (and its own squealing) provide a grating, authentic moment of old Death, but otherwise it's forgettable. The same applies to "Plains of Insanity": I like Lee's vocals, but the music is neither compelling nor inspiring.

Lastly, they've got a cover of Venom's "Warhead" here, and in a not uncommon maneuver (at least in later years), Cronos himself appears to 'grace' the rendition. It's a better song than any of the Massacre originals, and sort of fun with the mix of Lee's groaning and Cronos' hacking, but not itself worth the cost to purchase this. Thankfully, you might not have to: if you've looked past the admitted mediocrity of the band's material, Inhuman Condition is included with the 2000 re-issue of From Beyond. It's also worth noting that this was initially the 'end' for Massacre, at least for a few years until they'd switch up the lineup and return with the abominable sophomore Promise, which would REALLY be the end. Regardless, a cloud of cult buzz surrounds this act like some swooning halo of flies, and while it might not be all that deserved, there's nothing about their pure death material which was all that offensive or tasteless.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10] (reopen for exilement)

Massacre - From Beyond (1991)

If the line-up for this album reads like an early Death V.I.P. party, that's because it was. Bill Andrews, Kam Lee, Terry Butler and Rick Rozz all had a stake in Chuck Schuldiner's beautiful beast throughout its formative years, though Massacre was also around for a roughly equal period, once home court to Obituary's Allen West. For Andrews, Butler and Rozz, the time in Death involved some touring and studio appearances on the first three, and best albums. For Lee, the connection was somewhat more distant, but undeniable: he had contributed some drums and vocals to the earlier Death demos, and like Rick, was an alumni of its precursor Mantas. So, it is not a stretch to assume that From Beyond, snapped up during the Florida feeding frenzy at the dawn of the 90s, is going to sound a whole like that alma mater.

To Massacre's credit, they never seemed to be a complete or directly obvious knockoff. There's a sizable influence here from prototypical death/black/thrash act Celtic Frost, and the vocals seem to have a more direct correlation with Chris Barnes' grunting or Glen Benton's manic snips and snarls. There are certainly some similar riffs to what you'd find on Scream Bloody Gore or Leprosy (for example, "Cryptic Realms" seems to channel a bit of "Born Dead"), and they've even included a version of "Corpse Grinder", so it's not as if they're hiding their appreciation for their previous work. In fact, you might say that Massacre was a continuation of the values that Death had begun to abandon with Human: grisly, morbid old death metal with the inspiration of horror in the lyrics rather than the social and scientific relevance Chuck had begun to flirt with on Spiritual Healing. Unfortunately, while its a passable effort, From Beyond has a little too much of a 'me too' vibe underpinning it in general, and one wonders if the band would have ever secured a deal for itself without its associations.

Once your eyes have peeled away from the terror of its pink vortex of clouds and corny looking Creature Feature abominations, the album greets you with a promising atmosphere of doomed chords and synthesizers reminiscent of Helloween's "Halloween" intro, steadily escalating into a warlike momentum over which the Deicide styled vocals explode. Lee likes to add grunts and growls over the ensuing sear of Rozz's guitar lines, which at admittedly a bit silly, only because they're not used consistently enough to create a concussion of their own. Unfortunately, while as authentic as your going to hear for early Florida death, the track never establishes itself with a decent, memorable guitar hook. This is a problem that the band repeats numerous times across the eight originals: "Symbolic Immortality", "Succubus", and "Biohazard" are all frustrating in that they deliver the energy of well conditioned thrash and death but never hook you (the first channeling "Disposable Heroes" in the later bridge, the last sounding like a mix of Pestilence with Death breakdowns).

There are, however, a few more atmospheric pieces on this record that in my opinion are more entertain to digest than their environs. "Chambers of Ages" begins with a solemn, morbid synth intro that buries you in the architecture before it merges into the death/thrash zone, and the title track has a pretty mesmerizing, cosmic breakdown where the choir synth hovers off against a slower rhythm. Coincidentally, both of these also have some of the better straight death riffs on the entire album, not unlike stuff you'd hear on Napalm Death's Harmony Corruption, and I'd gladly name them my favorites. However, they're offset by the remainder, and there are some relative stinkers here like the thrashing "Defeat Remains" with its boring Exodus bludgeon. The cover of the Death demo track "Corpse Grinder" is a cool idea; sufficient enough in the hands of this quartet as it might have been with Schuldiner involved, yet it follows a predictable, uninteresting notation. It's more than obvious why it never made it to a Death full-length as it stood.

Sooner or later, when you've got enough people stacked on your raft, you're going have to choose between sinking or knocking off some of the other sailors on the sea of fate. Massacre was such an elimination, never really amounting to much despite their potential visibility through the burgeoning British label and their relationship to Death, and easily fed off to the starving sharks. From Beyond is by no means a shitty debut album. It was tight on execution, featured a lineup who obviously loved what they were doing and had some credentials too boot, and sported a clean as a whistle Colin Richardson production. But it'd be one of the last players picked in a theoretical team volleyball match of Floridian brutality, because it's simply not that intriguing, not that catchy, and offers no new maneuvers that haven't been done better by the rest of the squad. Compared to the sophomore full-length (Promise) though, it's a work of art.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (out of the realm of obscuration)