Growing old is a dangerous thing for a metal band, simply
\nbecause you’re damned no matter which way you choose to go
\nmusically. If you decide to continue in the same paths that you
\ntread in the ’80s, people will accuse you of living in the past and
\ntrying to re-capture old glories. If you try to carve a new musical
\npath, people will say that you’ve “sold out,” or that your new
\nmaterial just doesn’t live up to the glory days.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, consider, if you will,
\nMasterpeace<\/i>, the first release from the “classic” line-up of
\nMetal Church in some time. While the band has tried to maintain
\nsome semblance of balance over the years, they never seemed to
\ncapture the power that their first two releases,
\nMetal Church<\/i> and
\nThe Dark<\/i>, blared forth. (It didn’t hurt matters at the time
\nthat bands like Metallica and Megadeth were bringing thrash metal
\nto a whole new audience at the time.)<\/p>\n
With vocalist David Wayne and guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof back in
\nthe group this time around (though, to be fair, Vanderhoof has kept
\nsomewhat involved in the band most of the time),
\nMasterpeace<\/i> shows off one of metal’s veteran groups trying
\nto please everyone – and, in the end, they put out a listenable, if
\nnot completely satisfying, product.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, hearing Wayne growling out his vocals at high octaves
\nmight have been a bit laughable – yet I’ll admit to being a
\nhypocrite in saying that I kind of missed hearing them this time
\naround, instead hearing vocals that were more toned down than I was
\nprepared for. Likewise, I was kind of expecting to hear Vanderhoof
\nand John Marshall (who spent some time with Metallica as their
\nguitar tech – and, after accidents involving James Hetfield,
\nactually performed onstage) open up the floodgates and let loose
\nwith solos from hell. However, while there were moments that
\nbrought back some memories of the past, this outing was more
\nsubdued in regards to solos.<\/p>\n
You can bet there will be scores of critics on both sides of the
\nfence finding faults with
\nMasterpeace<\/i>. On early songs like “Sleeps With Thunder” and
\n“Into Dust,” you can hear Wayne and crew fighting with the ghosts
\nof the band’s early days, and sometimes those ghosts poke their
\nheads through to lead the music. On other songs like “Kiss For The
\nDead” and “Lb. Of Cure,” it almost seems like Metal Church is
\nwalking the same type of road that Megadeth did on
\nCountdown To Extinction<\/i> – slightly less heavy, more
\nmainstream-sounding in comparison.<\/p>\n
The funny thing is that Metal Church finds its niche by not
\nmerely choosing one of the two factions – instead, they take the
\nbest from both worlds and make it their own. Tracks like “All Your
\nSorrows,” “Sand Kings” and “They Signed In Blood” show that the
\ngroup still has what it takes to bang the heads of today’s youths.
\nUnfortunately for them, they find the Rosetta Stone at the end of
\nthe album, rather than at the beginning. (Special mention should
\nalso go to the instrumental title track, which ends way too early
\nand way too suddenly. When you get a good guitar groove going, even
\nif it’s an acoustic one, it’s best to let it play out to its own
\nnatural end.)<\/p>\n
Don’t consider
\nMasterpeace<\/i> a picture of an old, Dorian Grey-like band
\ntrying in vain to recapture the glories of their youths. Also,
\ndon’t consider this album to be a failure in any way. Instead,
\nconsider it the first baby step of a band trying to rediscover
\nthemselves in a musical era flooded with change. While it takes
\nthem the bulk of
\nMasterpeace<\/i> to regain their footing, Metal Church does make
\nsteps in the right direction… but the journey has just begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6202],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36390","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-metal-church","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36390"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36390"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}