Review by Vinny for Worship - Last Tape Before Doomsday (1999)

This one was a bit lost on me I am afraid.  Now, I (sort of) get the reason why it is so revered.  The album is as true a revelation of genuine pain and emotional darkness as I have probably ever heard, that cannot be denied.  If you are a seasoned funeral doomster then there is a lot to be drawn towards here.  The underground aesthetic to both the sound and the title of the album also carries some appeal to the anti-establishmentarian in me.  As awful an event as it was, the tragic suicide of the drummer/singer, Fucked Up Max has probably garnered this record a little more attention that it actually deserves in my book.  Whilst I can acknowledge all of the points above, the fact is that the means with which Worship deliver their art form is just too disconnected for me.

To me this does just sound like two blokes in their bedroom, playing the first thing that comes into their heads.  It might be crushing, it might be agonisingly slow and literally bleeding melancholy everywhere but it just isn't good either.  As a fan of extreme metal, I do not type the above words easily, but to me this has two distinct halves it could fall into.  On one hand it is absolute brilliance, landing in that spot due to simple organic connection between each other and the music fan listening to it.  If your life is genuinely so consumed by depression and misery and you happen to have some instruments and recording gear, then this is exactly what I would expect any such recording to sound like.  However, the other half this could land in is where it can also just seem lazily constructed, and that is fully accepting it is a demo.  My issue here is not just necessarily the content itself, more how appreciated it is in general when the actual merits are so scarce.

Maybe I am finally finding my limits in metal music after nearly four decades, who knows?  I almost want to like this more than I actually do, however I must always write my honest reflections on what I hear and this one simply just does not land well with me.  There's barely any percussion, which is a big thing for me in driving music forwards and I guess I just miss that vehicle too much here, never quite getting invested in what is playing as a result.