Watchmaker

Hate gets a bad rap. Hate can keep you going when all other emotions (love, hope, etc.) will fail you, leaving you ruined and hopelessly vulnerable to the emotional predators of society. Watchmaker hate you, unequivocally. Not in the way someone hates broccoli or waiting for public transit, but in the utterly relenting and misanthropic way that leads to kill-crazy rampages, revenge slayings and murder-suicides, which would be laudable for its commitment if it wasn’t so terrifying. Musically, Watchmaker deliver one thing: auditory violence. Their sound is of the blackest, most primal death metal mixed with reckless thrash/grind abandon, power-violence havoc and hostility, and played with little regard for clinical precision, the welfare of listeners or themselves. Unquestionably it is a wall of razor-tipped noise decimating all it comes in contact with, relentless in its assault and seemingly unstoppable and difficult to withstand, even for the likeminded. Anguished vocals and utterly misanthropic sentiments (their first two records were entitled Kill.Crush.Destroy and Kill.Fucking.Everyone, respectively) drive the beast and titles such as "Gunpoint Stoicism” and "Relentless Post Mortem Killing” furthering their MO. True, little has changed, musically or ideologically from their other records (though this is the first not to have "kill” in the title), and in their hurry to exterminate all they see they sometimes should take a minute and revel in the carnage. But, as soundtracks to the apocalypse go, Erased is the end-time message.