Review Summary: Simple but Trv
Few death metal bands have such a tumultuous and prestigious past as Massacre. Founded in 1984 as a traditional metal band, Massacre melted its weaponry and reforged itself into raw death metal ingot under the helm of vocalist Kam Lee, original singer and drummer of the legendary Death and the inventor of the technique known as the ‘death growl’ itself. However while Death would go on to release a total of seven infinitely lauded, impossible to ignore albums, Massacre would only release a single extreme metal LP in the same timeframe, the equally as mighty but not oft considered
From Beyond, recorded with Death’s other original guitarist Rick Rozz. Innumerable setbacks and conflicts between Kam and Rick would prevent Massacre from reaching the same heights as every other prominent 80s death metal band, and the release of the album-that-should-not-be-named in 1996 permanently sealed that coffin.
Nevertheless Kam Lee, like a trve death metalhead, never gave up on his goal of seeing Massacre forge further legitimately necrotic albums even if it took decades. And decades it did, and not without great struggle and turbulence. 2014’s
Back from Beyond stood as a direct callback riding the coattails of their immaculate 1991 album, but was as middling a release as could be. 2021’s
Resurgence was an even weaker release, hardly worthy of the name Massacre. Throughout the last couple decades they have also released a number of EPs and singles, some of them quite good but never any as satisfying as a complete hardass death metal album. And so it is with relative joy that I, Smok, on this November 11, 2024, in remembrance of death metal’s glory days, and a massive Massacre fan, present their first competent album in decades,
Necrolution.
Now hold your undead equines for a moment! No, I am not saying this is groundbreaking in any way, nor does it at all compete with what Massacre accomplished in the 80s or early 90s. This is a steadily composed modern straight death metal album written at Kam Lee’s behest and adamant determination to never let the old days die (and amen to that!). By the very album cover art itself one can see the tone the album means to take — classic death metal cover art, love it. That said, Kam did manage to recruit Massacre’s original bassist Mike Borders for this release, and similar to Speckman and his Czech boys in Master, hired a couple of Swedes by the names of Rogga Johansson and Jonny Pettersson to run havoc on guitars.
Which isn’t to say the riffs are overtly complicated, rather they are very simple, meant to convey and reflect on death metal’s origins in the present time, and by that nature pvre and trve badassery. The quality is again very similar to what Master has been producing in Speckman’s old age, though heavier and less punky. Drums are handled by UK unknown (can’t even find his age) Jon Rudin, themselves producing satisfactory but unremarkable fills. However as the creative and driving force of Massacre since the 80s, Kam is a beast on vocals — mighty death’s crypt bellows from the well-muscled innards of an ancient monster. As they say, an old tiger is still a tiger, and he will rip your throat out at a moment’s notice.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Massacre has been broken for a very long time, an absurdly long time. But old wounds may heal, and when you get to a certain age you no longer give a single ***.
Necrolution is Massacre’s redemption and restoration to what once was, and while it may only appeal to the trvest of death metalheads, is an objectively solid album from a band thought to be lost to time.
