“Huzzah!” I thought to myself sarcastically when I saw this album in my to-do list of promotional stuff. “Technical Death Metal – now there’s a concept that’s never been done before!” Noting that it was a project of Joe Payne’s (Divine Heresy and former live Nile) hardly increased my excitement, but on listening, what do you know, this actually turned out to be pretty good stuff. It’s as modern as you’d expect, with plenty of parts that seem designed to induce the more neckbeard-oriented members of the Death Metal community to get out there and mosh their pants off, and the performances are tip-top. Payne on bass, guitars and vocals is joined by Lust Of Decay’s Jordan Valera on the drumstool, and both do their damnest to take the basic Deicide grunt and blast formula and play it as well as it possibly can be played, hundreds of little fills and flourishes the frilly necklace on the inverted pentagram. With a name like Domination Through Impurity, however, you’re clearly not going to get Satan-worshippers, and Masochist takes its themes of angry violent hatred and builds nine songs of well-played Death Metal from them.

So, what makes Masochist better than its peers? The skilfulness in playing is woven throughout, for one, moments such as the little drum solo in Less Than Human well conceived and executed, and in general songwriting is of a good quality, heavy and complex, but with surprisingly listenable undercurrents and sections that approach catchiness at times – the interjected guitar leads on Patron Saint Of Hate come to mind. First impressions are not stunning, but stick with it and it proves itself to be a solid album with time. I can’t see any Death Metalhead worth his or her salt not digging the rollicking rhythms in Interminable Descent, leading to a great solo and some catchy heads-down Decapitated-esque groovery, or the blistering intensity of Path To Righteousness’ six-minute maelstrom. Obviously there’ll be complaints about the Deathcore-styled breakdown in the title track, but it is well executed, and they’re pretty rare throughout the album, the band preferring more Death Metal-styled trills and fills.

It’s a shame that this review came out in the same week as my bro Charles’ write-up of the Atheist comeback, as it’s unlikely to get the respect it deserves up against such competition. Obviously Jupiter is a far better album that Masochist can hardly compete with, but if you’re in the mood for well-performed Tech Death, then this stands out from other bands and deserves your time.