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Must Missa > The Target of Hate > Reviews
Must Missa - The Target of Hate

A target of boredom - 47%

davkov85, August 21st, 2007

Let me start with some general thoughts on black and thrash metal. I think black metal is an „easy” genre. Even musicians with limited technical skills and songwriting talent are able to produce at least average black metal tracks. This doesn’t apply to thrash metal. It’s much easier to make bad thrash metal than bad black metal, because for good thrash metal it’s not enough to generate an aggressive atmosphere. When it comes to thrash metal, failures can never become romantic or nostalgic good moments („Aaargh, good old Moonblood! How inexact was the music! How bathroom the production!” etc.)

This is in itself a caveat for black metal bands who consider a switch to thrash. They should remember that the standards here are entirely different. This is precisely the pitfall Must Missa has got into. Ma Ei Talu Valgust was a fairly good, though not outstanding, black metal release. It certainly had its moments and showed even some sign of uniqueness: an interesting rock’n’roll-flavour, and notably from a different point of view than Carpathian Forest. The follower Goat of Sin sounded in similar veins. I haven’t heard the last release, nor had this one convinced me to do so.

The reason is that this is boring as hell. Not terrible, but rather bad than good. Black/thrash? If you have something like Aura Noir or Deströyer 666 in mind, forget it immediately. Very little of their black metal past is retained; this is primitive thrash with some black metal riffs.
Primitive and repetitive are the two words which describe this music best. A third one is soullessness. A close relative is Octagon-era Bathory, but wait, even that unpopular release was inventious in a way and it actually contained songs. Not this release. Imagine an album which consists of fillers only. If you take all the good riffs and mix them, you get one song. Really, about 4 minutes is worthwhile on the whole album.

They use the same recipe for each song. Take a riff which at first listening sounds fairly good. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat… Now comes a second riff. Repeat it to the death AND TO THE DEATH, and switch back to the first. End of song. What goes for the guitars also goes for the other instruments: the rhythm section lacks any kind of fantasy and the vocals, well, suck. The whole thing is so boring that I have difficulties with naming the instruments separately.
There are some good moments, though. The beginning of Scapegoat is catchy and retains some of the earlier black’n’roll-ish Must Missa. Our Future is Black is also good at the beginning and is the most black metal influenced song. Unfortunately both of them quickly sink back into total boredom.

Thrash metal is supposed to be about aggression, or viciousness, or whatnot. I don’t really feel the adrenaline flowing in my veins while listening to this. The production is also crappy and makes the music even more powerless. Sorry Must Missa, thrash metal is not for you! Die-hard fans of thrash-Bathory (are there any?), and maybe of early Destruction and Kreator too, might give a chance. But you have been warned!