I had to check a few things before getting on to this review. Yes,
Mass Burial is a Spanish band and maybe I suck at geography but I had to take another closer look at the map of Europe to realize that Sweden was no bordering country of Spain.
So you’ve guessed it, here we are with another band that pledged allegiance to the peculiar Swedish Death
Metal sound of the early 90s, namely the Sunlight Studio sound. To be perfectly fair with the band, they really captured this sound to its fullest. It does feel as if Tomas Skogsberg were behind the production console as
Of Carrion and Pestilence reeks off of past behemoths like
Nihilist,
Carnage,
Dismember and so forth. Basically take in bits of early
Entombed and
Afflicted, mix them with early
Dismember and early
Therion, add power-ups in the form of
Mr Death and you have the recipe for
Mass Burial. You’ll even find a few chunks of
Carcass on the main riff of the track “
Mass Burial”, but I guess that it’s no accident since the British band was also very influential in shaping the characteristic Swedish sound.
Obviously this is bound to appeal to all those of us that remain nostalgic of this era and to those that actually are discovering it nowadays. Still, as much as I can praise the effort to copycat with class all these legends to actually make it sound as if one of them,
Mass Burial fails close at one thing: keeping the attention up. Though there are no obvious flaws, there are also no really striking elements that would spice up the play. Those early legends of Sweden had certainly managed (thanks to Skogsberg mainly) to create a sound of their own but they also add some magic in them that made records such as Left
Hand Path or
Dark Recollections instant classics. Use of intricate melodies, stunning breaks and insidious darkness with an almost punkish angst.
And I'm afraid that even though
Mass Burial captured the form, they failed at seizing the substance of it.
Still don’t get me wrong, this is certainly catchy as hell and most tracks, and especially
Mass Burial and Post
War Psychosis, are nice ones worth checking out but the old flame isn’t here as it was on the previous releases worshipped by the dudes of
Mass Burial. On top of that, if you consider the avalanche of bands, from Scandinavia or not, that have "embraced" the Swedeath sound, it looks like it's going to be tough for the Spaniards to compete with the likes of
Morbus Chron,
Mr Death or
Stench of
Decay. Good luck with that.
Otherwise, if you’re a fanatic for everything close to this era, this is a sound buy worth the money you’ll spend on it. So in the end, I'd say this is average + and worth checking out if you need a Swedish fix.
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