SAVAGE MESSIAH - "THE FATEFUL DARK" ("Forged from reason and carved into stone, a shrine to sorrow that stands alone. Our leaders from future to past, from the wreck age, forged to last.")

SAVAGE MESSIAH - "THE FATEFUL DARK"
("EARACHE RECORDS"; CD)
(Running time: 10 songs in 52:15 minutes)

Review: And the loose and anyhow inofficial Metal Days rage on up here, and this time I have this for you: Here we have a at least to me totally new band, SAVAGE MESSIAH from (for all what Facebook tells us) London, England/U.K. with their newest/current and also already third full length album titled "THE FATEFUL DARK" brought to us via "EARACHE RECORDS". More or less by accident I stumbled upon this band and album, not at least due to the reason that my local record store sold it for just lousy 2,50 Euro bucks and so I definitely didn't had to think twice, especially after the artwork pretty mucn promptly caught me. Okay, right from the start, judging by the artwork and the bandpicture(s) I thought that this looked like no "EARACHE RECORDS" band and release how I once used to know this label (as being one of the dominat forces in bringing out the most brutal, aggressive, heavy, and extreme stuff in Grindcore and Death Metal), but I guess that's just what happens when time passes by, anyhow, and so here and now we are with "THE FATEFUL DARK" brought over us by SAVAGE MESSIAH. This album is a really strong Speed/Thrash Metal bastard somewhere between (old) METALLICA (think especially about the "...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL" era with really, really big "BLACK ALBUM" marks in it all) and MEGADETH (first to name "COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION" and also "RUST IN PEACE") with doses of TESTAMENT (especially to their "SOULS OF BLACK" time) and ANNIHILATOR (somewhere between "SET THE WORLD ON FIRE" and "KING OF THE KILL") in it and all cultivated with some few slight IRON MAIDEN impression, and even SAVAGE MESSIAH can't match up with this classics (but how could they, how could anyone) they still do a even more than decent job and truly deliver the goods, clearly and straight up and without a doubt, point and fact. The album is filled with high skilled, diverse and multi-layered, fresh and re-freshing, damn hard'n'heavy yet reallly symphonic, melodic, and in every positive sense catchy and also pretty hymnal arranged and composed guitar work, totally smart and charismatic clear and really sung lead vocals that cover a wide distance of different facets, moods, and sides of emotions and feelings and expresses all in a very oratorical way, and with a great own character of and approach to it all. And then there's finally the very spurred and just sheer fantasic diverse and totally tight and precise working rhythm section that just gives it all the needed heavy as well as diverse and especially skilled powerful punch ahead. Really great. Expect here great and skilled musicains at work, and even greater songwriters that deliver one hell of a multi-layered album, totally top up-to-date and done with a very great own character. What I also like pretty much a lot is how they avoid any lame and stale retro farce crap, that's great, and instead of this delivering a totally exciting, interesting, grapping, fresh, and aboslutely relevant up-today album that other bands would kill for to do.  Just cut off loose the last weak lame points that pop up here and there from time to time for a (short) bit and all will be pretty close to being perfect the next time. My personal favorites are without a doubt the totally divine "MINORITY OF ONE" (the solo part and the lead-bridge part to the solo alone will make you bow down infront of your speakers), the outstanding atmospheric "LIVE AS ONE ALREADY DEAD" (goosepimples man, just goosepimples!!!), the mighty thrashers "ICONOCAUST", "SCAVENGERS OF MERCY", and "HAMMERED DOWN" as well as the great shining "CROSS OF BABYLON" and "HELLBLAZER", so maybe check this songs out first - but don't make the mistake to think the few not named songs would be anyhow weak, nah, because they are anything but weak, they are still anyhow the clear opposite to weak, point and fact. The diverse and thoughtful lyrics, as well as the truly great artwork and the first class production sound also totally rule, yes, so go out and get this album and make sure to bang that fucking head that doesn't bang, because SAVAGE MESSIAH simply fucking rule. /// Andy

(Rating: 9 of 10 points)

(Band sites: http://www.savagemessiahofficial.com/ and also https://www.facebook.com/SavageMessiahMetal?fref=ts - And after Blogger again ticks me off with not posting the links as direct links to the sites just copy them into the headlines of new browser tabs and then just go there and make sure to check them out.)