Massacre - From Beyond

I figured what with the needless reformation of Florida's Massacre (sans loudmouth extraordinaire and legend in his own mind, Kam Lee), I might as well throw in a quickie review of their 1991 snorefest, 'From Beyond'.

I remember being more than merely psyched when I found out that this was being released (probably from some ad in Metal Maniacs) and flew down to the local record store to vamp a copy of this along with Suffocation's 'Effigy of the Forgotten'. The first time I heard this album I thought it was pretty damn good. The first song was aces and there were a few other fairly decent tracks tacked on as well. It wasn't until later on (probably after hearing Suffo's album once or twice... probably once) that I realized that this album was kind of a drag. Being a "budding" vocalist myself, I was well aware of and more than a little intrigued by Kam Lee's status as being one of the more hateful and commanding sounding vocalists out there. At the time, I thought that his vocals were pretty good. Definitely not anything outstanding but not bad either. I think my main problem with his voice was that after the first track he began to sound more and more redundant with the passing of each song.

The drums and bass are about as standard and boring as they had sounded on Death's second two albums. Again, they're just "there". The guitar riffs, for the most part, are just plain old mediocre. While I'm certainly no "tech-death" aficionado, I do like to hear something fucking going on in the riff department. Oddly enough, the one thing that never bothered me were the leads, which, from what I understand, are the bane of all wannabe lead guitarists from here to Timbuk 2. I got to see Massacre live back in 1992 with Grave and I remember they actually had to stop the show because Rick Rozz broke a string during one of his whammy fests. I didn't mind. 

Considering how lame and pedestrian this album sounds, I'm sure it was not an overwhelming heartbreak for Chuck Schuldiner to give each and every one of these dudes the boot from out of the ranks of Death.

I had the displeasure of hearing one of Massacre's current tunes and it's just as boring and lame as anything that came out before it, though I must say, the ep 'Inhuman Condition' is actual pretty damn good and to this day I've never listened to 'Promise', so there.

I already know that all of the idiots on Facebook who collect every attention starved, has-been death metal musician like they're stocking up on 'Wacky Packages' will be singing praises of the new Massacre and how "true" it is, blah fucking blah blah blah. If you're one of these wannabe old school chumpzoids who collects and worships every piece of almost forgotten shit that came out in the 80's/90's just because it's "old", than I'm sure you'll be all over this. If not, than hats off to you my friend.