### Western Massacre: Freedom through violence

#### 22/04/13 || Ironpants

Get in to the groove…

Out of Florens, Massachusetts they come with groovy American death metal in some kind of mix between brute force and classic metal? It’s a quite clever combination, you compose some riffs with obvious references from hard rock or heavy metal, rough it up a bit, add some growling/screeching vocals and there you go. Groovy death metal! It is almost the same recipe Chris Barnes & Co have tried to do for a couple of albums with SFU (which they now seem to have abandoned, thank Satan!). The difference is that these guys do it better, they have better kitchen tools, better ingredients, and more cooking skills.

Here and there you get some vibes from Pantera/Lamb of God and in other places it’s straight out of the box heavy metal riffing. In songs like “Roadhouse”, “Blood and stone” and self titled “Western massacre” they show off with some traditional hardrock build up, and then when the verse begins the dual vocals (growl/screech, one singer = magic?) help to transform it in to death metal. The problem is that it gets a little dispersed and mixed up, but there is some potential in here though, I have a weak spot for grooves, so if they work out some high class material for the next album and add some more work with the song structures, they will surely rise above mainstream death metal.

7/10: We were dancing, and singing, and movin’ to the groovin’.