Mr. Violent Death

Seeing the name "Mr. Violent Death" I was expecting a band from one of those places like like Indonesia or Colombia that I always associate with unintentionally comical English band names, only to find some bald bearded Nebraskan staring at me all alone except for his Jackson V. Hoo-boy, this is going to either be brilliant or shit.

Heh.

Disdaining the "Death/Thrash" tag at time of writing, half of this release sounds like basic deathcore. Aggressive but boring riffs, vulgar display of angry white dude rhyming, robotic drums playing mostly the kind of beats 311 would have used in the 90's if they had a second kick drum and did meth, bass drops that will compress your brain like playdough even through dollar store earbuds, yawn. To be fair, "Thousand Yard Stare" has at least one good thrashy riff and "Lurid Engoratopsy" comes close to sounding like good - if overproduced - death metal, but I'm still yawning at the package as a whole.

The only real departure on this EP - and it's worth pausing on - are the numerous guitar solos that reveal "Mr. Cody Boyles'" true strength: although middling as a songwriter and vocalist, he's a monster of a lead guitarist. Maybe a little heavy on the sweep picking in absence of phrasing or melody, it's still better than most can do.

...and that's sort of a problem, because in this era of internet maturity, "better than most" isn't exactly hard to come by. I'd be interested to hear Mr. Mister in the context of a multi-piece band where one or more persons are bringing the creativity, but this particular release isn't all that remarkable.