Death March Fury

A look through the line up makes Death March Fury by Masachist both interesting and slightly predictable. Featuring Sauron’s (ex-Decapitated) distinctively guttural vocals and guitar by Trufel of the awesome Azarath, it sounds a lot like you’d expect it to. The tracks here are based on contorted, pummelling riffs with plenty of groove, relentlessly battering drum assaults and a stomping, almost grooving approach to death metal. Very Polish, then: there are also a lot of similarities between this, and, say Lost Soul, as well, in its penchant for a liberal sprinkling of flashy lead guitar showiness to add a gleaming rapier blade to an arsenal comprised mainly of heavy artillery.

It also drips with the same barking, hostile attitude as those bands. But while it certainly isn’t catchy, there isn’t a total absence of hooks. Songs often shift restlessly from idea to idea, some of which are pedestrian and some of which are great. A tune like Malicious Cleansing could have emerged straight from The Negation, with its twisty-turny riffs and generally clobbering approach to everything, including down-tempo chugging. And, of course, in the deep, harsh vocals.

It therefore suffers from the same strengths and weaknesses as Lost Soul and Decapitated. It can overpower you with its brutal groove one minute, and feel slightly leaden and futile the next, a bit like stamping on something in steel-capped boots, that’s already been broken down to atomic level anyway. The lengthy Appearance of the Worm is maybe the worst offender in that sense, with its slow churn never really feeling like it’s going anywhere and crying out for a bit of melody. It’s the short sharp shocks like Crush Them!!!! that get the blood pumping again, as you would expect something with three exclamation points to do, with its constantly morphing riffing being to die for. Another shortie, Noxious is another urgent-sounding highlight.

Well, with Decapitated now absent in the most tragic of circumstances, there is definitely a hole that needs filling. And why not fill it with Death March Fury? Noticeably, it’s an incredibly short album, at less than half an hour long. This could tell you two things; either it makes its brutal point concisely with little need to repeat anything, or it has little else to say anyway. In reality, it’s actually a bit of both.