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Crucial
Blast released The Mass’ previous 2005 record Perfect Picture
of Wisdom and Boldness, which contained some great tunes
infested with even greater moments. The curious thing is The
Mass had certain propensity to indulge, to play eight minute
non-traditional thrash songs that would half way through fall
into a sax inhabited groove. If The Mass’ metal was unorthodox,
it was moments like those where they’d got their groove on that
truly made them unique and to a point, quite strange. When we
think of metal bands using a saxophone we shouldn’t think of
some funkified metal, or even saxified death metal a la
Yakuza. The Mass’ music is a more visceral experience. There is
nothing death metal about them and sure as fuck there is nothing
funky about them. They are much more difficult to pigeonhole not
only because of the saxophone they use but because their metal
is also downright weird.
So three
years after the eventful Perfect Picture of Wisdom and
Boldness this California band offers up four new songs in
the form of this self-released EP. And I am happy to say that
not much seems to have changed, as they have retained their raw
punk edges, have exaggerated some of their thrash metal-isms and
have created more of those jazz-riddled exhilarating groovy
moments. To speak about their metal is to speak about their
punk; The Mass is a heavy band, that’s why they don’t waste time
and “Trbovlue” rushes in almost unannounced with guitars and
vocals at the same time. Barely a minute into it, we can already
hear subtle sax blowing, but the focus is on the rageful vocals.
For the remainder of the song guitar and sax run at unison,
replicating each other.
“Human
Shield” is a cock-teasing biter; with its trebly riffage, its
quiet come louder come quiet come louder moments, it dies two
minutes into it only to come back to life with bigger teeth. The
Mass craft big clashes of music so for the second half of “Human
Shield” the band advances in all sorts of angular curves and
robotic bass patterns before showering us with what sounds like
the great Ethiopian sax player Getatchew Mekurya doing a cameo.
I could have this forever. The bad news is Holocene #6
is limited to 200 copies. You know where to run to.
Official Site
MySpace
Read the
The
Mass interview |
