Crimson Massacre - The Luster of Pandemonium - Reviews

Metal like any genre of music gives way to clones seeking to ca$h in on another bands success by honing in on that sound then blending it with their own as a method for attempting originality. In pop rock Coldplay is a modern U2, in modern rock Creed would be a crappy version of Pearl Jam, in Metal, Deicide started out as a sloppy more guttural version of Slayer, and many are the bands the emulate the Cannibal Corpse style. Obviously, bands have success copying one another and from a pragmatic perspective this is no worse than the great James Joyce ripping off entire sections of Miltons' ‘Paradise Lost' for his book ‘A Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist'. Yet, every now and again, a band hits the Metal scene with an album that has elements from other work in its fold, but at the same time buries the listener with a reverberation that is unique. Friends, let me introduce you to Crimson Massacre and their blistering riff monster of an LP called ‘The Luster of Pandemonium'.

Crimson Massacre come out of Texas where the brutal Death metal scene has spawned a legion of imitators whose guitars are ultra-thick, whose bass is ultra-down-tuned, whose drums are ultra-fast, whose vocals are ultra-putrid, whose music is ultra-broootal whose lyrics are ultra-sick, and whose image is ultra-bad-assed. By contrast Crimson Massacre guitars are thinly treble, the bass hums with life, the drums blaze without pretension, and the vocals are a cross between Death grunts and Black Metal screeches. Really what the listener gets in Crimson Massacre is a salvo of unrepentant riffage that spirals in a frantic maze of heart pumping trepidation and chaos. At first the fan will feel as though they are confusedly trapped in the infamous Battle of the Somme during World War I, for the guitars of James Jackson and Bill Ledgerwood twirl in a barrage of harmonized licks, speed ranges, unique note passages, riffs that are more than 3 notes, and standard scales that are intensely similar in dissonance to getting mowed down on a battle field. Yet, after a couple spins of this disc the fast rhythms and mad sequences will become much clearer to the listener. At that point one can sit in slack jawed conjecture with drool caked in the goatee and piss staining the pants as flowing melodic qualities are interplayed with passionate stealthy brutality levied to rape the mind.

To try and put the Crimson Massacre sound on ‘The Luster of Pandemonium' into perspective one would have to cross reference them with other bands in the genus. Take the melody, double bass, and frantic riffing of Demilich from ‘Nespithe', and merge it with the spiteful spit of ‘Gardens of Grief' and ‘The Red In the Sky is Ours' era At The Gates. Then slather on some Golem style vocals, technicality in riffing, guitar tone, and drum triggers, and cover it in a sprinkling of the atmosphere of Gates of Enoch with some Acerbus and you have imagined a similarity to the sound Crimson Massacre has achieved. The album is filled with morbid alacrity and naysayer's who arrogantly dismiss the implications that Death Metal is a near equivalent to Classical music will be stewing in the feces of their simpleton minds and stereotypical analysis, for ‘The Luster of Pandemonium' is ripe with the improvisational styling's of Vivaldi, Bach and Wagner. In this sense, Crimson Massacre seems to have constructed songs on a mini-riffage basis with fragmentary ideas transcending from 10 seconds, to 30, to 1 minute, to 5 minutes, before closing. The tinny treble sounding guitar produces an almost organic sound when contrasted against the ultra brutal sound of today's six stringers. This combination creates long guitar sequences full of texture robust enough to be a Pinot Noirs from Rosella's Vineyard. This sheer complexity is the primary difference between ‘The Luster of Pandemonium' and Crimson Massacre' first recording ‘Temple of Gore' that had a straightforward Melodic Death Metal vibe and sound.

The ambivalence of this album is what makes it unique and a song like “The Devourer” proves this with drums that are not relegated to supporting the rest of the instruments, in that they seem to revolve around the music. On the title cut, "The Luster of Pandemonium", the drums and guitars seem to trade places with one another between being fast or slow, but there are enough hyper fast blast beats from the drums to give the music adequate sustenance. Another killer track is the 11:14 long “The Hyperborean's Epitaph". During a first listen this song seems like it should be a brief intermission piece, but it keeps playing along in a lovely fashion that again defies the norm. Actually, the song is exceptional in its acoustic simplicity in that one may have expected some Al Dimeola fretwork combined with Chet Atkins finger picking after hearing the first 4 complex songs. Were I in my early 20's during my experimental days I would surely have spun “The Hyperborean's Epitaph” while on a tab of acid, for the trip would have been as good as the timbering bass solo towards the end.

Taken as a whole Crimson Massacre have done exceedingly well in creating an album that is multi dimensional and technical without being too harsh. The only negative to ‘The Luster of Pandemonium' is that it may be too difficult for the passive meat and potatoes type of fan to consume. With this in mind I broke out 2 of my favorite near masterpiece's of tech style Death Metal, Immolation' ‘Close to a World below' and ‘Unholy Cult'. While Crimson Massacre does not sound altogether similar to Immolation, certain things do stand out like the seemingly insane improvisational riffing during the first and second verse of the song “Of Martyrs and Men". That notwithstanding, the reason I bring up Immolation is that they have created a brilliant sound despite technical innovation, that lures the listener into submission. In effect what I am saying is that on the next album Crimson Massacre may find that the less is more approach may be beneficial to their expanding fan-base. Still, if Crimson Massacre wants to dissent against the norm with their future release, then this slightly aged insurrectionary is not going to bitch too damned much. For now, fans should get their cash out and buy ‘The Luster of Pandemonium' cause it is clearly a worthy addition to any music library.