Review by Daniel for Critical Mass - Unholy Wars (1992)

Sydney five-piece Critical Mass were a name that I saw floating around the live scene in my home city during the early 1990's but never had the opportunity of experiencing in the flesh as far as I can recall. I did, however, get the chance to check out this one-off album which would occasionally find its way onto the CD player of whoever's house the after party happened to be at though. Critical Mass had begun life as a cover band called Foreign Order in the late 1980's before changing their moniker & attempting originals but they didn't really amount to much before calling it quits around 1993/94. I was familiar with vocalist Greg Moore through the 1989 "Into Reality" demo tape from Sydney speed/heavy metallers Enticer (3.5/5) which I quite liked but the rest of the band didn't really come from any level of metal pedigree & it shows on their sole full-length.

The "Unholy Wars" album was released through Vampire Records in 1992 which surprises me really. Label owner Danny Kaleda was a well-known member of the local metal community thanks to his long-standing "Monday Night Metal" radio program on 2RRR (a show that I was a guest on at least once) & Vampire would be responsible for putting out high-quality extreme metal records like Sadistik Exekution's "The Magus" & the first couple of Nazxul releases. It seems a little strange to me that he'd associate himself with such a mild-mannered & fairly easy-listening metal release such as this one but that would appear to be the case. The production isn't anything to write home about either with the rhythm guitars being too far back in the mix & being over-powered by the rhythm section. For this reason, "Unholy Wars" sounds a lot like a self-financed affair.

Critical Mass' musical approach sits somewhere between Metallica's more chuggy, mid-paced thrash metal material & a more accessible heavy metal sound built around power chords & vocal hooks. Unfortunately the thrash riffs are so simple & generic that I can't help but feel that the band would have been better served by concentrating on their less intense side as they're certainly a little better at it with power ballad (& clear album highlight in my opinion) "Road That Never Ends" & the catchy heavy metal singalong "Nineties" being two of the more rewarding numbers. The lead guitar work is quite accomplished for such an inconspicuous release though & is definitely one of the better elements of Critical Mass' game although Moore doesn't possess the vocal chops to see the song-writing maximizing its potential. There are no genuine shockers included here but the peaks are rare & I generally find myself feeling a little underwhelmed rather than disappointed.

It's not hard to see why "Unholy Wars" might have drifted past most of the global metal scene without much fanfare because it's sound is simply a little too simple, generic & lightweight to raise too many alarm bells. I can't in good conscience score it any lower than three stars though as it certainly has its moments (such as thrasher "When..." which I quite like). It just feels a little flat & never really sees my heart-rate increasing which means that it was never going to amount to more than a blip on the radar of my metal journey.

For fans of Metallica, Nothing Sacred & Aggressa.