Album Review: Mass Worship – Mass Worship (Century Media Records)

Hailing out of Scandinavia, Mass Worship is a darkened metal band tastefully adding onto the rich legacy of Scandinavian metal with their uniquely heavy and gritty sound. The Stockholm-based band was officially formed in January of 2018, but the members carry a rich history comprising of relentless touring and recording schedules and the future that lies ahead of Mass Worship will be no different.

On the essence of the band, drummer Fred Forsberg comments:

Mass Worship is a glimpse into the underbelly of our reality, a realm running parallel to our everyday lives; hauntingly familiar, yet completely foreign and isolated — always present for us all to tap into. Our goal has consistently been to let our songs live and breathe in this space, and to try and bring the listener in.

Building on the rich legacy of Scandinavian metal, the band seeks to merge old and new, punk and metal – chaos and disorder – into one single entity. Claes Nordin (vocals) continues:

Like many bands we grew up listening to we see a clear connection between metal and punk, and bands that successfully mix the two have always made a huge impact on us. We want this band to make use of the urgency and pure force of punk without losing the finesse and intricacy of metal. There’s a bunch of old school bands we all love and cherish, such as At The Gates, Entombed and Dismember, as well as a ton of more modern sounding bands like Meshuggah, Mastodon and Neurosis that we all like equally as much.

The band is looking forward to taking their heavy riffs out of the Scandinavian darkness onto the road and beyond. The self titled album will be released on October 18th 2019.

The spirit of the old school Swedish death metal/death-crust sound is alive and well within Mass Worship but to just outright call them an ‘old school’ band does them no justice. This is a band pushing the boundaries of modern heaviness with a debut that is solid gold from beginning to end.

Celestial is such a fantastic opener. The riffs weighty and the rhythm demanding wild head-banging while the clean and raw chorus lifts the mind. An utterly kick ass of a start.

Spiritual Destitution sees the band’s crust-style roots come out with a short and sharpened blast. While Sibylline Divination keeps the filthy rawness at the forefront, an aggressive pair that make the ears bleed.

Serene Remains doesn’t stay too ‘serene’ for long as the anarchists within Mass Worship makes sure we know just where they’re coming from. However, it’s Below that will really make the eyes water and the bowels loosen. The chunky riffing and skull-cracking percussion are so impressive but with throat-shredding vocals to boot, it’s simply brilliant. It’s filled with darkness even before the bass leads us into hell during an unexpected drop.

The raging power of this stellar debut is exemplified by two very short tracks, Proleptic Decay and Downpour. Sandwiched in between them is the brutal and dark, Dreamless Graves. An easy shout for the best track on the album as Mass Worship blacken the mind with savagery.

Mass Worship have knocked it out of the park here.

Mass Worship – Mass Worship Full Track Listing:

1. Celestial
2. Spiritual Destitution (Album Version)
3. Sibylline Divination
4. Serene Remains
5. Below
6. Proleptic Decay
7. Dreamless Graves
8. Downpour

Links

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