Rating: 5.5

Country: USA

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Goodfellow Records

Track list:
1. Dissector
2. Bloodline
3. Painted Contortionist
4. Messenger
5. Error
6. Mind Bender
7. How to Kill
8. The New Human
9. Apostate
10. Myopia
11. Of Cult and Atrophy

Band Website: The Handshake Murders

The Handshake Murders - Usurper

Jayson Holmes - Vocals
Daniel Wiggins - Drums
John Ridenour - Guitar
Brian Evans - Guitar
Jeff Kear - Bass

First of all, I offer my apologies to The Handshake Murders for being extremely tardy with this review. Never during my time at Diabolical Conquest have I received a promo that has left me so unresolved for so long. For that reason it has been continually pushed to the bottom of the pile. The dilemma is that these five guys know exactly what they are doing, executing professionally and tightly with feeling, a damn good guitar sound and an ability to arrange songs in an interesting way. But (and this "but" wouldn't be disguised by XXXL clothing) there are barely a few seconds of material here that you haven't heard before.

The ever-evolving Meshuggah have had an incredible influence on many forms of metal and it is a testament to their greatness and inscrutability that no clone band has been capable of matching half of their eminence. The Handshake Murders would seem to have leeched the Nothing vibe which in itself is a risky plan because that album was a more introspective and doomy journey by the Swedes to define their own purity. On the plus side it does mean that Usurper is full of wonderful foundation-shaking bending chords (sounding particularly good on the final track, where the notes seem to reach up both literally and figuratively). "The New Human" almost achieves sonic boom thanks to a little super-low atonality. But this is not enough. The vocals are standard metalcore/noisecore fare, nowhere near the throat ripping power of Jens Kidman. The drummer does some trademark Tomas Haake but unsurprisingly gives a faceless performance that one would expect from a virtual covers band. The half-baked and bloodless lead work shows that there is no Thordendal/Hagstrom dynamic either. They never even explore express pace other than in transient microspasms of chromatic fretting.

If you strip away the ersatz Meshuggah stuff what is left? "Messenger" and "Apostate" have clattering The Dillinger Escape Plan intros, with the latter having a little Sepultura Roots warmth to finish. There's a stylish alternating slide riff in "Mind Bender" and mini divebombs in the first track to supplement long grooves (with a flavour of Pantera's The Great Southern Trendkill thrown into the mixer here). The final track is one of the better ones, properly utilising polyrhythm formed form lurching lows and dissonant harmony and ending with a jerky staccato feast.

It is sad that my main abiding memory of this is the "I'll rip your throat out!" lowest common denominator moshpit shout of "Painted Contortionist". Even sadder that musicians squander their potential by imitating rather than inventing. By no means devoid of enjoyment but forlornly devoid of freshness.

October 5th, 2007