Review MASSACRE ‘Resurgence’

Line-up stability isn’t something Massacre is famous for. The band went through so many adjustments when it comes to bandmembers being involved that counting and listing is useless. What is much more important is that the death metal veterans return with a new album.

Also due to the mentioned line-up changes, Massacre wasn’t spoiling fans with new records on a regular base. The groundbreaking debut belongs to the classics of a genre that gained momentum at the time. The sophomore release ‘Promise‘ took things further and it took 28 years for Massacre to regroup and publish with ‘Back From Beyond’ their third album. In case someone thought that this would be the starting point for regular releases was disappointed since it took the band another seven years to unleash their fourth death metal blast.

Maybe there have been fans that might not thought that such an album will ever hit the shelves, but here it is – ‘Resurgence’. Kam Lee, an icon when it comes to growling, is the driving force behind Massacre in 2021 and the good news is, that bassist Mike Borders, also from the original line-up, rejoined the band and his grooving bass can be heard on ‘Resurgence’. Next to this good news, Massacre operates in 2021 with three guitarists. Scott Fairfax, Jonny Pettersson and Rogga Johansson, all three are well-sounding names in death metal, share the guitar responsibilities on ‘Resurgence’. What these guys deliver can be described as a monstrous riff inferno. That’s what you get if you let experts do their work.

Listening to the massive opener ‘Eldritch Prophecy’ swipes away any thoughts of Massacre maybe having lost their power during the last years. The starting point to ‘Resurgence’ is a brutal death metal inferno. The band has used the years to revitalise and they unload a deadly riff attack in ten steps on this longplayer.

‘Resurgence’ brings back the oldschool death metal sound from Florida, a ten ton hammer album with massive guitars and filgree solo parts by Scott Fairfax. It seems like working on the album wasn’t an ego trip. It was more of teamwork that certainly helped to create such a strong death metal monolith and also a pandemic couldn’t stop Massacre in their willpower to finish work on their fourth longplayer.

What contributes to a terrific impression is the dense sound that reminds of oldschool death metal too and still fits into the here and now, not a surprise knowing that a guy like Dan Swanö was involved in the creation of ‘Resurgence’. Talking about big names, Massacre also could convince a few genre companions to also add a piece to the total. Marc Grewe, Dave Ingram, Anders Odden and Pete Slate contributed to the power of this album. With having all this in mind, we can conclude that what Massacre delivers with their new longplayer was worth the waiting. A 40 minutes death metal strike, that’s what one get in return for patience during the last years.

While writing this review, there are two storms. The first one is a first autumn storm that crosses Europe and what’s louder than the howling wind is the massive death metal storm that comes out of the speakers. Massacre is back with full force and what the guys deliver with ‘Resurgence’ is a highlight in the 2021 list of releases. I would be surprised not seeing this album in some of the 2021 year polls.