Beneath the Massacre

Beneath the Massacre, a band that have been battle-hardened in the powerful Quebec death metal scene, have only just released their second full-length, but to Canadian audiences it seems as if they’ve been around forever. Rigorous touring has allowed them to build up a strong following of metal fans (as well as a selection of hardcore kids) in Canada, and recent inclusions on bigger tours (such as Summer Slaughter) have hopefully laid the seeds of destruction down south. Dystopia is by no means a reinvention of the brutal death metal wheel. Instead, it is a solid slice of insanity that taps the more vicious elements of peers such as Suffocation and delivers it with some cool moments of frenetic fret-board skill and crushing, but still moderately comprehensible, vocals. The album is a few steps behind the more quality extreme releases of the year (such as Origin’s Antithesis) but is a solid release by a great Canadian act from start to finish.