Mass Persecution

A dedicated Minnesota trio who came out one day, just like that, and deafened everyone around with their intense ultra-thrashy tactics. They tried to annihilate the non-true with the self-titled demo first, but since this therapy suffered from muddy production, above all, the intended outcome wasn’t achieved.

Minnesota… sorry, mission accomplished with the album reviewed here, violent vehement, vitriolic barrage reminiscent of Evildead’s “Annihilation of Civilization” and Dark Angel’s “Darkness Descends”. The ultimate bash descends with the unrelenting “Powerlord” before more intelligent, less brutal riff-patterns emerge on the varied steam-roller “No Excuse” the latter unceremoniously side-lined by the 1.5-min of proto-blasting Cryptic Slaughter-esque insanity “Blacklisted”. Eye-gouging stuff this one, the band promptly blacklisted after it, vying for parole with a brief balladic etude at the start of “On a Pedestal”; no success simply cause this is the next-in-line piece of aggressive thrashing, the band taking no prisoners whatsoever until the arrival of “Industrial Destruction”, a controlled near-mid-tempo stomper with an enchanting lyrical intro and outro. However, on an outrageous recording of the kind there can be only one oasis if we also exclude the surprisingly technical shredder “Weight of the World”, still a hyper-active proposition but full of unexpected twists and turns. The second half is a bit less even with more serious attempts (“Vision Peak”) intercepted by the staple short explosives (“Hold of Deceit”) the band never losing their uncompromising attitude from sight regardless of how exhausting holding onto it may be, the vocal accompaniment almost as depleting, the guy providing shouty semi-declamatory hardcore-ish tirades the entire time, never shifting from this tiring near-singing stance.

Swept by a Minnesota blizzard the audience once was, the mayhem lasting for a bit over half an hour, the three storm stirrers vanishing from sight before the authorities had had the time to incarcerate them… they did have the temerity to show up for another audition, though, three years later with the “Mainroom Wanna-be's” demo, an intriguing 4-tracker that saw the band moving towards the heavier, more progressive side of the spectre with echoes of Defiance and Heathen. A really cool new path, for mainroom occupiers only, it showed the guys in a more elaborate light, outgrowing their passion for bashing till death, taking their art more seriously… as a farewell gesture, mind you, as this was the last temptation of the three valiant troubadours. They couldn’t cause another storm with it, but I guess a natural calamity of such proportions can only occur once.