It’s been a long 8 years since the Canadians in Beneath the Massacre gifted the world an album composed of their brand of extreme metal. With influences including tech-death giants Origin, this is not music for the faint-hearted.
That fact remains true with the first two tracks of the album, “Rise of the Fearmonger” and “Hidden in Plain Sight”, being two songs that are crushingly heavy. Flowing sweep-picked melodies, blasting drums and the earth-shattering vocals from Elliot combine to create something that if repeatedly played, would probably split the earth in two. This is particularly evident on “Treacherous” which does not let up at all during its short 2 minutes and 22 seconds that it pounds your ears. The same can be said of following tracks “Autonomous Mind” and “Return to Medusa” as well. These tracks do not let up and only let go once all the life has been shaken from the listener.
Yet, despite it being such a heavy album, there’s actually a lot more than just sweeping-guitar riffs and blast beats. Each song is unique and can stand on its own but also equally flow all together as an album. The stellar production on this album as well helps with that and keeps things fresh over repeated listens.
Often, tech-death falls into the trap of being technical for technical sake and can thus just sound like a bunch of notes and noise. Beneath the Massacre have, however, avoided this trap and created an album which is insanely technical and heavy but is not overdone. Everything is balanced on the knife’s edge just perfectly, and nothing ever feels too much. It’s an album that, as Chris the guitarist said, can be enjoyed whilst sitting in the bath.
Fearmonger is out on March 27th. Pre-order on Amazon to help this site!
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