Review by Ben for Martyr (CAN) - Hopeless Hopes (1997)

Ambitious technical death metal album in the style of Death. This is an impressive if flawed debut!

I only very recently checked out Hopeless Hopes for the first time. My only previous experience of Martyr was their 2006 album Feeding the Abscess, which quite frankly kicked my ass. That album is filled with seriously technical and brutal death metal that I enjoyed enough to include on the Rate Your Music Ultimate Box Set > Death Metal that I put together last year. Ever since I heard that album, I’ve been very keen to delve into this Canadian band’s early discography to see what other gems could be uncovered. Given my previous knowledge of the band and the fact Hopeless Hopes was recorded way back in 1997, I guess I just assumed that it would be a more primitive effort and more than likely a substantially less technical one. What I discovered was something entirely different, being just as technical, albeit in a far less brutal style. While I won’t try to convince anyone that this is some sort of defining death metal album, it certainly contains enough good stuff to recommend to any fan of technical death metal. So, what exactly is Hopeless Hopes all about?

The first thing to say is that this sounds a lot like mid-nineties Death. Clearly fans of Chuck Schuldiner and co., Martyr didn’t exactly try to replicate the sound of albums like Symbolic and Individual Thought Patterns, but they undoubtedly took a great amount of influence from them. As anyone who enjoys great death metal would know, trying to match the quality of those albums is like attempting to transform your ceiling into a representation of the Sistine Chapel, yet these guys gave it their best shot. From a technical point of view, the members of Martyr are not embarrassed by their ambition at all. Daniel Mongrain and Pier-Luc Lampron display immense class with top notch leads and exhilarating riffs pouring forth consistently. When you check out the bands that Daniel has performed with when not on Martyr duty, it’s easy to see how well respected he is in the Canadian death metal scene. If names like Gorguts, Cryptopsy, Quo Vadis and even crazy thrashers Voivod aren’t enough to get you excited then you might as well stop reading this now. He also shares vocal duties with his brother Francois on most tracks, completing his Schuldiner-like performance.

Daniel’s vocal style is not all that typical for death metal and reminds me a lot of Jens Kidman from Meshuggah, having a deep holler rather than a death growl. It works well enough given the progressive elements of the music and is always completely intelligible. Francois on the other hand does have a decent growl, which is used sparingly for more impact. Speaking of Francois, his swirling bass lines are cool, having that non-linear freedom so often found in bands of this ilk without leaving the rhythmic structures behind. Francois Richard is just as impressive behind the drum kit and displays superb skills and variety throughout. Like other technical death metal drummers (Sean Reinert comes to mind), this guy likely has some sort of jazz training. There's no doubt that all four members of the Martyr line-up are more than adequate from a musicianship point of view. But...while Martyr may have no issue on the technical front, there are two main reasons why Hopeless Hopes doesn’t match up to the work of Death’s early to mid-nineties run, not to mention other technical death metal bands such as Cynic and Atheist.

Firstly, the production is lacking. Despite being independently recorded, the album does have a clear sound with each aspect of the band coming through perfectly well. But Hopeless Hopes just lacks the crushing power that would take this material to another level and while it is undoubtedly a death metal album, just doesn’t have the muscles or menace associated with that genre to make a dent in the scene. Secondly, the song writing, and lyrics are unfortunately not consistent for the entire 51 minutes. It’s not surprising that the two tracks that really fall flat (Ostrogoth and Ars Nova) are re-recordings of demo material written 3 years earlier. They have far fewer interesting structures and immature lyrics that stand out amongst the newer material. What is surprising is that the awesome Protoype is also from that demo, so I can only imagine that this was the track that set the band on their more developed direction. But I’m really nit-picking what is a thoroughly impressive debut from a band that would eventually find its own identity and get the recording values they deserve. The title track, Prototype, Elementals and The Blind’s Reflection are enjoyable, and Hopeless Hopes should be checked out by anyone into the more technical side of death metal.