I think I don’t exaggerate if, having to describe the Man Must Die, I speak about it in enthusiastic terms. I’ve always loved them, I even wrote it in the review of their latest album published on these pages some time ago. “Forever” means since I bought their debut twenty years ago …Start Killing, practically sight unseen. I often buy music just because I like the moniker, or the cover; put on the stereo it was love at first listen, a love that never faltered during their – admittedly very tormented – career.
Listen to the opening piece A Lesson Once Learned just to please, it’s a condensation of everything our Scottish deathsters are capable of: there’s technique, there’s melody – and a lot of it too, in five and a half minutes there are at least four supporting riffs that tear your balls away and offer them to Jannik Sinner to train – there is an ability to arrange the pieces within the reach of only the sacred monsters. The next one is no different All Shall Perishright from the title a tribute to one of the band’s influences; we go back to banging our heads against the wall in frenzy Faint Figure in Black, again glorified by portentous and memorable riffs as well as a panic-inducing bass/drums/loose guitar break, before the same riff is reprized in pure Mortician style. There’s no point in making a track-by-trackthere isn’t a single piece that isn’t a bomb, until the explosive, demolishing final one Faint Figure in Blackas heavy as swallowing an anvil by force
The fact is that Man Must Die have managed to condense all the best that death metal has been able to offer throughout its history at all latitudes, making a summary that is better than the sum of its parts: they mainly draw inspiration from American groups of the greatest caliber of Cattle Decapitation or Arsis, something also Dying Fetusbut don’t be surprised if listening to the album you will find machine guns equal to those of the Malevolent Creation. All this admirably inlaid with influences of melodic Swedish death, the technical and intricate one.
Jean-François Dagenais (guitarist and founder of the band) was responsible for the production Kataklysm, you already know), someone who knows a lot about technical death metal, obtaining a result that in my opinion is exceptional: all the instruments are balanced in a spectacular way, each one has its own space and its own relevance. Denny on bass (wonderfully highlighted, to complement the presence of a single guitar) and John on drums are one of the most deadly rhythm sections of any era; Alan on guitar outlines superfine riffs, out of reach for most more or less prestigious death bands, Joe on vocals varies between pure growl, gurgling more cavernous and corrosive and the barking of a dog seriously ill with rabies, not disdaining to venture into passages that border on black metal.
From …Start Killing we can never speak highly enough, in nine songs for approximately 38 minutes of music the boys set a milestone with which the other groups of the time had to compare themselves. It’s a shame that it came out on a very small underground label (Retribute records), a constant that has marked the history of the Scottish band in part by clipping its wings, apart from the second and third album released for Relapse. It wasn’t easy to find, just as it wasn’t easy to find their most recent CD released last year after a silence that lasted ten years. As I see it, they didn’t have luck in their favor, because in terms of quality, ability and intent today we would be talking about the debut of one of the greatest death groups of all times, not the little-known album of a Scottish band that hasn’t collected what he deserved. (Griffar)
