The Dead of Night

Masque was introduced to me with a promising-sounding extract of their song "Back With A Vengeance" on one of these female fronted metal bands compilations I love to watch on Youtube. And now, luckily, I've listened to the record that this song is featured on, and it's one of my "discoveries" of the year.

Masque plays heavy metal with lots of energy and rage, very intense lyrics, a gripping atmosphere and choruses that you can't help but sing along to. The lyrics deal with revenge, hate, madness and death. Jo Phipps has an equally intense vocal delivery, with a deep and rich voice. The vocals, just like Masque's music in general, are not particularly subtle and maybe a bit cliché. So you may not get into that band, but if you like the style that I just described, you'll probably love this.

While "Confined Insanity" is a good introduction to the band, and their concept of a vengeance-seeking character who might be insane but really was only turned into this because of what others have done to her, and "The Dead of Night" has the same awesome characteristics as "Back With a Vengeance", it's that aforementioned track and "No Light to Die By" that really shine here. Let's see why. And no, it's not a track by track review, these songs do need to be explained in a few paragraphs.

"Back With a Vengeance" starts with a quieter melody and lyrics about this character looking for her revenge. We learn that her revenge is as motivated by hatred as it is by pain and despair, as she sings "The pain still hasn't gone, my hate for you is so strong". Each of these words sticks in your mind. You're completely gripped by the lyrics, who really sound like they are telling a great story. The singer doesn't just say these words, she feels every single one of them, like a theater actress.

Then the song goes faster, and becomes a great heavy metal anthem. It's just as intense as the beginning, and the singer still seems to be "acting" the lyrics. It's angry and irresistibly catchy. Sure, it's over the top, but in a fun way. Every lyric sounds like it's going to become an iconic catchphrase for a really awesome character. It might be one of the greatest revenge songs ever.

"No Light to Die By" is a shorter song, without any sudden tempo changes, and ends this record on a much more cold and desperate tone. The verses are sung in a fast yet graceful melody (I really love heavy or power metal songs with that kind of tune !), and that chorus of "Going alone, there's no light to die by, oh oh oh" also sticks in your mind. I often think of Jo Phipps singing "There's no light to die by, oh", when I think of a character's death or a particularly sad scene. It shows how dark this EP is: now, there is no more time to think about your revenge and whether it will succeed, you're just dying miserably because sometimes the bad guy wins. One really haunting tearjerker of a song.

So Masque was just as good as I hoped. They were a really good, not necessarily original but always entertaining, really underrated band from the golden age of heavy metal. They had a great vocalist, and some really good songs with highly quotable lyrics. If you let them, these songs will a lasting impression on you. I'd say this mask deserves to be taken out of its box and worn again.