Unreleased 1985 Album

1985 was certainly a great year for death metal. Possessed released ‘Seven Churches’, Insanity (US) released their first rehearsal demo, Death were releasing their own milestone demos, etc. Along with these formative releases was Master’s should-have-been debut LP, but due to a number of circumstances, it wasn’t officially released until 2003. This is death metal in its earliest, most primitive form, and its a fine specimen of this sort of sound.

The production on here is a mess, which is actually quite suiting (I wouldn’t want it any other way). Like the music, it is raw, ugly, crude, and cacophonous in a way that only could have been achieved by a proto-death metal band (weird sentence structure, I know. It will definitely bother some, as it is very noisy, but those with a liking of this sound will definitely appreciate it. My only complaint is that the guitars are a little too low in the mix, but it’s not really too much of a problem, as the riffs are still (for the most part) decipherable.

As I was saying, the music itself is very primitive in that early proto-death fashion. Speckmann’s vocals here king of lye between his vocals from the Deathstrike material and the first Master LP. In other words, they’re simply awesome. They are definitely lower then what Possessed and Insanity were using at the time but not quite as guttural as what would become the standard vocal styling used in death metal a few years later. The riffs kind of remind me of a less simplistic, more death metal oriented Hellhammer, which is always a good thing. The guitar tone is a hideous, grinding mess in the best way possible, as is the bass. The drums are pounded and pulverized throughout the whole album, and are actually pretty repetitive, but not the point where it becomes annoying.

Master’s 1985 unreleased LP is a fine slab of mid-80’s death metal. And although it isn’t quite a ripping as the Insanity demo, nor is it as demented as ‘Seven Churches’, it is still an excellent recording that I highly recommend to anyone in this sort of sound, or just old school death metal in general. But those looking for melody, technicality, and catchiness – stay far, far away, as this is definitely not for you.

This CD is basically the recordings that might have been master's debut album, had they chosen to sign to Combat records in '85. They did not, and when they did finally issued their self titled debut a few years later, they were a slightly different beast, and in some ways more generic. These early thrashing, powerful and chaotic cuts are what inspired others (Terrorizer, Napalm Death, etc.) to form bands and expand the death metal and grindcore universes, so you gotta know that this is lethal stuff. Paul Speckmann's vocals are rough and raw, though not the death metal grunts he would soon adopt, and this suits the material well. Apart from the '85 recordings, this very cool CD offers some other unreleased stuff and is highly recommended to death metal completists and fans of raw metal in general. From Beyond is a cool label that does a reverent job on their releases, and this is no exception to their strong track record....YOU ARE THE MASTER...SET YOUR SOUL FREE!