Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Massacre - From Beyond (1991)

There’s few death metal bands out there who can boast the list of names that Massacre have had in their ranks over the past thirty seven years. A speed/heavy/power metal band until the arrival of Kam Lee and Allen West saw the band adopt death metal as their chosen style, the band have had one of the most tumultuous histories in terms of line-up changes and legal disputes. Amazingly still active to this day the band for me only ever really put out one significant release, From Beyond in 1991.

This album showcased the layered vocals of Kam Lee brilliantly. Lee is considered by many as being the founding father of the “death growl” on the band’s 1986 demo Aggressive Tyrant. His vocal style has graced the ranks of Death (as backing vocals and he also did drums) as far back as 1984 and his Nattravnen project as recently as 2018. Listen to From Beyond though and you will hear all manner of sounds that showed commonality with existing behemoths such as Obituary, Morbid Angel and Master.

Now let us be clear here, From Beyond is not that unique an album. You won’t find anything on here that wasn’t done on Slowly We Rot, Master’s self-titled, or even Cancer’s To The Gory End the previous two years to Massacre’s debut coming out. What you will find distinctive is Lee’s vocals but also the gnarly edge to proceedings. Those riffs could easily open cuts on your cheeks and brows if you were stood too close to them but overall, the album has an intensity to it that is relentless. They intersperse the odd song with an intro here and there but mostly this is pound for pound a heavyweight death metal record that is out to do some harm.

With Terry Butler handling bass duties, Rick Rozz on guitar and Bill Andrews on drums (the latter two being founding members) it is kind of hard to expect anything else really. These were all established musicians, responsible for some of the most extreme metal of the time who had worked on the superb Leprosy or Spiritual Healing albums with Chuck Schuldiner and therefore brought a wealth of experience to the table (some of it built in Massacre and further developed in Death). This was death metal royalty of the time, and it shows on From Beyond. Notwithstanding that it is not entirely unique in sound it is so very well put together, so clearly thought through and planned in terms of composition and writing that it just cannot fail to make any death metal fan sit up and take notice of it.

Rozz’s riffs have a thrashy edge to them most definitely and probably are nearer to Master’s brand of death/thrash – albeit they are slightly more coherent and stable in comparison. Andrews does a sterling job as you would expect behind the skins, and it sounds like he was able to transpose the energy and enthusiasm he has for the genre onto the record. It is easy to track his performance across all nine tracks and he remains audible in the more intense passages and unobtrusive on the calmer stretches. Butler’s subtle twangy bass is harder to pick out at first but it is there when you knuckle down to the whole listening experience and you can pick it out clearly if you concentrate.

There is a cavernous depth to Lee’s vocals that reverberate around in the same abyss that the rest of the instruments dwell in. The whole album sounds like it was recorded underground, on moving tectonic plates. It has a rumble to it throughout the album but also a feeling of dread and of doom (not sounding like doom though) accompanies pretty much all the album. As a result, it has a grimy feel to it, sounding like it was recorded to make you feel uncomfortable. It is like whilst it is clubbing you over the head with unhindered vigour at the same time it is stroking your cheek or running a clawed finger around the circumference of your lips.

Whilst it holds an undeniable macabre charm to it, From Beyond does still have its limitations and I cannot say I play it all that often when compared with some of the other bands I mention above. At the end of the day, it does not put a foot wrong, but it also does not distance itself all that well from what was available in abundance at the time already and as great as it is there is not much justification for calling it a classic. Most of the band’s members had arguably exhausted their best output in Death by the time they ever got around to committing their own material to tape. Therefore, From Beyond’s legacy seems to be that it will forever be known as an often overlooked death metal album from the genre’s heyday.