Holy shit this is a beautifully bleak collection of music!

How would I describe this album?... It's on the level of movies like "Hamburger Hill", "Grave of the Fireflies", and "Requiem for a Dream"  where you know that you have witnessed a masterpiece, but instead of coming away with "I can't wait to see that again", you come away with "I never want to see that again." The emotional toll is just too heavy. 

The album Title "Watching From a Distance" alludes to the narrator deeply desiring a relationship with someone he can not obtain. It's a break up album about someone that you can still see, smell, and hear, but will never again taste or feel. There is an illusion of hope that the relationship could be rebuilt-but you know it's a mirage. Unrepairable damage has been done, and maybe it was your fault.

Now, this type of longing is nothing novel to the realm of doom metal, it's well-trodden subject matter. The difference here is that there is no wall of distorted guitars and muddy production to hide behind. There are no extravagant figures of speech in the lyrics that cheapen or soften the subject. There is no deep indecipherable growl that allows you to evade paying attention. No, this is very thick production, but it's also crystal clear, as are the vocals. It's as emotionally raw as it gets. You are going to hear this man's pain, and you are going to feel it.

"I want to be master of my own emotions with a fire that fills me

But I don't understand myself and I don't know

I don't know what my heart is anymore"


I have heard a masterpiece, and  I don't ever want to hear it again. It's too perfect and it's too real.

I first discovered Tennessee brutal death metallers Brodequin through their 2001 sophomore album "Festival of Death" back in 2009 & very quickly found myself indulging myself in the rest of their back catalogue. I'd only recently returned to metal after spending a decade in the electronic dance music scene & was looking to satisfy my long-standing urges for the sort of devastatingly brutal death metal I'd drenched myself in during the mid-1990's. These guys produced some of the most brutal death metal you'll ever find during the early 2000's so I perhaps gave them more time than they actually deserved if I'm being honest. This debut album "Instruments of Death" is a clear case in point because it's nowhere near as good as it's made out to be.

There are two main gripes that I have with it that prevent me from being able to connect with a release like "Instruments of Torture" in 2026. The first & most obvious is the ridiculous vocal performance of bass player Jamie Bailey who makes no attempt whatsoever to enunciate actual words here, instead producing an almost never-ending drainpipe pig-grunt that I find enormously annoying, single-handedly destroying my chances of finding any genuine enjoyment in "Instruments of Torture". The second is the sloppy drumming of Chad Walls who doesn't seem to possess the endurance to consistently keep up with Michael Bailey's at times very solid death metal riffage. This is a real shame because the pieces are all here but Brodequin simply can't manage to put them all together in a similar way to how they've done with their much cleaner 2024 comeback record "Harbinger of Woe" which I really enjoy. There is certainly better brutal death metal out there than "Instruments of Torture" so perhaps it's for the best that its runtime is limited to just twenty-five minutes. Oh well... I guess you can't win 'em all.

For fans of Liturgy, Disgorge & Orchidectomy.

The seventh studio album from long running technical death metal band Inferi certainly sounds like it belongs in the Inferi catalogue of albums. The album is filled to the brim with pummeling death metal, melodic guitar solos, and lots of bass. Most of the time, this would make for a moderately entertaining death metal album and I think that Heaven Wept does indeed sound enjoyable. The symphonic accompaniment does not overwhelm the listener in the same way that it does on the Atavistia album I reviewed just yesterday, and it allows for the strong bass lines to take center stage and really carry this album. The record does have some decent melodic leads, many of which are carried by the guitar, but sometimes a strong chorus is presented. The record reminds me a lot of the kind of melo death you might hear from The Black Dahlia Murder; high praise indeed. However, the vocals keep this album from being any better. Now it might sound ironic to refer to Inferi as imitating Black Dahlia Murder and then criticize the vocals since neither Trevor Strnad or Brian Eschbach have a ton of variety in their vocals either. But they would typically be complimenting great choruses and guitar leads. Heaven Wept, and Inferi as an entity, is primarily tech-death with a splash of melodicism. The lack of vocal diversity leaves parts of the record feeling hollow at worst, and at best, too overwhelming. A couple more moments of reprieve, such as on "Atonement Denied" would have been beneficial. 

Best Songs: Master of Nothing, Eternally Lie, Atonement Denied, Godless Sky

For Fans Of: The Black Dahlia Murder, The Faceless, Fallujah

I apologise in advance dear Reader, if you feel that this review is excessively autobiographical, but it is kinda relevant to my long-term relationship with glam metal generally and W.A.S.P. specifically, so here we go anyway:

I really didn't get much out of glam metal at all in the 1980s, it's celebration of "life on the Strip" just held no meaning for my life in a dirty, industrial town in northern England. The likes of Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Saxon had far more resonance with my life trying to get by, having left home in 1981 whilst still a teenager and desperately trying to pay my rent or mortgage on a young factory worker's wage. But whilst the likes of Poison and Motley Crue meant absolutely fuck all to me and just pissed me off with their poser attitudes and aesthetics, there were a couple I had a bit more time for. The first was Twisted Sister's Dee Snider. I felt TS were actually a pisstake of the whole glam scene because, not wishing to be too cruel, they were uglier-looking m-fs and the makeup and shit just seemed like a parody to me. The second was Blackie Lawless who I had heard of when he briefly joined The New York Dolls. My first wife's little sister was a big glam metal fan and talked me into taking her to see W.A.S.P., probably around '85, and you know what, they were fuckin' good and, against my expectations, I really enjoyed the show and came away with a lot of respect for how expertly Blackie worked the crowd and how effortlessly charismatic a character he was.

I later picked up The Last Command after hearing a track on the obscure late-night metal video show I used to watch on TV on Friday Nights after coming in from the boozer, the name of which I can't recall. The main draw for me was Blackie's voice which, whilst having quite a high register, also has a ragged edge that gives it a savage roughness and makes it sound way more evil than the Vince Neils or Bret Michaels of the world. And that was my sum total of involvement with W.A.S.P. pretty much up until my time here with the Metal Academy, since when they keep popping into my view from time to time in the forums or on playlists. To be honest I can take 'em or leave 'em, but it is probably a sign of a bit of a shift in my taste lately that listening to this debut album for the first time in quite a while, it is obvious to me that I am enjoying it far more than my original 2.5 star rating would suggest I did back whenever.

One thing is certain from the outset and that is that W.A.S.P.'s debut has far more metal credentials than most of the other glam metal acts of the Eighties who, in the most part, were glorified rock acts for my money. This is certainly bona fide heavy metal we are listening to here, not some lipstick-smeared version of hard rock. Even the band's glam aesthetic seemed more Alice Cooper inspired shock horror than the poor, sleazy drag acts than many of the other glam metallers aspired to. The riffs drive the tracks and whilst there is little you haven't heard before here riff-wise, they are memorable and catchy and filled with an energy and drive that becomes infectious as they thunder from hook to hook. Over all this Blackie snarls and bellows his heart out with tales of schlock and whores (sorry I couldn't resist the pun) that would act as rage bait for Tipper Gore and the tight-assed PMRC, which will always get a thumbs-up from me. The guitar soloing is decent although, again, the solos aren't really unlike many you have heard before, but are well executed and transform a track like the balladic "Sleeping (In the Fire)" from being a bit of a downer into a far more positive experience, whilst adding the icing on the cake to a top-knotch track like "Tormentor". The pacing of the album is just about spot-on too, varying from the breakneck charge of tracks like "Hellion" or "The Torture Never Stops" (my favourite here) to the more considered mid-pacing of "Tormentor" and the aforementioned ballad-like reflection of "Sleeping (In the Fire)". It isn't all good news, however, as indicated by my mid-level rating, with side one petering out badly from a strong start with the brace of "B.A.D." and " School Daze" sounding like the more usual iteration of glam metal that I dislike so much. The cringe-inducing lyrics to "On Your Knees" also ruin a perfectly good riff-led track and are a turd in the swimming pool of the otherwise much stonger second side.

On reflection I have got to say that I am rather pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to this again and I feel I have a bit more of an understanding and respect for what Blackie and co. were doing here (probably alongside the letting go of some of my long-held musical prejudices). I am gonna call this one a win.

When you are guilty of the unpunishable crime of producing one of the most moving and memorable albums of a particular year, an artist must mine the very depths of their creativity to provide a follow up of any worthy repute. When Messa dropped Close in 2022, they were already two records into their career - two records which I have not heard to date incidentally – and produced an album that topped many AOTY polls and lists, my own included. Unafraid of boundaries and unwilling to accept much in the way of limitations on their sound, the Italians showed us all just how extensive their range was. Making it all sound so damn cool whilst putting this authentic exploration of their musical palate was just the icing on the cake really. Inadvertently, this set up the challenge of one day having to follow Close up and upon my first few listens to The Spin my opinion was that they had hit the exact wall that I feared they would.

The gothic tropes of the bands 2025 record were the first hurdle for me. Musically such a style does not sit all that well with me and, initially at least, this more sombre edge to proceedings seemed to rob the record of the same level of passion that its predecessor was awash with. It felt like between records, some alignment process had been undertaken in Messa’s life meaning that they were now drifting away from the wonderful connection we had once shared. I could hear the lead work of Piccolo clearly enough, but the feeling that had emanated from them so plentifully on Close seemed numbed somehow. After a few listens, I stepped away from The Spin altogether, resolute that my enjoyment of Messa was going to be limited, for now at least, to that one record.

Curiosity may have allegedly killed the cat but it sure as hell is the saviour of many album reviewers, I am sure when it comes to giving records a second chance. And so, I came back to The Spin recently. Reviews I had caught elsewhere still talked about the merit of the record. It did take a couple of super-critical listens, but this time it finally clicked. It is not as good as Close, I doubt they will ever top that record if I am totally honest. Yet those shades of grey that are applied this time around do not hinder the expression of the record anywhere near as much as I initially thought. It feels eclectic enough still, despite their being a more accessible if not all that mainstream vibe to it. Emotions are never quite at the point of being super-charged like they were on the previous album, yet they are not lost by any means. If anything, Messa are just showing that bit of maturity I mentioned earlier, losing some child like view of the wonder of their own soul in the process perhaps.

It is still well written, far too well written in fact for anyone to be unimpressed I would say. The musicianship is top-notch and the vocal delivery of Sara is perhaps the only element in here that I sense is dialled back a little from last time. If you look at The Spin as a standalone record, then it is no doubt going to hit the higher end of the scoresheet and in some ways, it is criminal to drop points off my final number based on a comparison of a previous record. Talented individuals when brought together in the right environment make great records and that’s what Messa have managed here, regardless.