Shatter Messiah
Orphans of Chaos
Sleaszy Rider Records
2016
Shatter Messiah is a power metal band with borderline thrash elements that has been going on for a while now. Founded by Curran Murphy, previously with Annihilator & Nevermore, and Robert Falzano, also formerly of Annihilator, Shatter Messiah are now on album number four only some three years after their latest album ”Hail the New Cross” which is also the second with vocalist Michael Duncan (Pownd, Thunder Tribe) and bassist Kelly Conlon (Death, Monstrosity, ex- Vital Remains etc).
While the band’s brand of technical power/thrash metal is theoretically good and they don’t experiment wildly, to estrange the metal population, they just aren’t all that brilliant or catchy to be a firm favorite, with a lot of their muscular, heavy compositions stuck in perpetual mid-tempo that doesn’t really help the band’s cause… with a lot of antagonism in a genre where Nevermore reigned supreme in the past due to their originallity, Shatter Messiah seems to fall a little short of the inspiration side of things even the extra 3 songs included (as an EP of sorts) don’t change things that much and apart from a couple of songs early on like “Swallow” and “Slave” which however has Duncan exposing weakness when he tries to wail like Halford an comes across quite weakly, the only other song that really piqued my interest was the very melodic “Free” exactly because it was that much different.
Not entirely bad, but they can neither antagonize old bands or even the better crop of newer ones in that end of the music spectrum…they’re fair and talented and execute the songs capably, but their songwriting just isn’t all that engaging.
While the band’s brand of technical power/thrash metal is theoretically good and they don’t experiment wildly, to estrange the metal population, they just aren’t all that brilliant or catchy to be a firm favorite, with a lot of their muscular, heavy compositions stuck in perpetual mid-tempo that doesn’t really help the band’s cause… with a lot of antagonism in a genre where Nevermore reigned supreme in the past due to their originallity, Shatter Messiah seems to fall a little short of the inspiration side of things even the extra 3 songs included (as an EP of sorts) don’t change things that much and apart from a couple of songs early on like “Swallow” and “Slave” which however has Duncan exposing weakness when he tries to wail like Halford an comes across quite weakly, the only other song that really piqued my interest was the very melodic “Free” exactly because it was that much different.
Not entirely bad, but they can neither antagonize old bands or even the better crop of newer ones in that end of the music spectrum…they’re fair and talented and execute the songs capably, but their songwriting just isn’t all that engaging.