Master – The Human Machine (2010)

The legendary Master is back again with “The Human Machine” and it’s ready to blow some heads off with their traditional old-school Trash/Death Metal aural assault that we have been witnessing since the band first started, back in the 80’s. Note: If you don’t know who the almighty Master is, then you need to get your Metal facts straight and do some research before you continue to listening to Metal music.

“The Human Machine” features the gritty sound that we all love from the Death Metal records produced in the 90’s and sadly is probably one of the best things that the album has to offer. By no means “The Human Machine” is a bad album, but it just sounds a bit stale from what we have been used to hear from Master, and even “Slaves to Society” is a far superior album than this one.

Paul Speckmann still delivers a powerful vocal performance, and a brilliant bass line through the album, but we think that the overall composition of the songs feels uninspired an a bit dull, we find ourselves having way too many “I’ve heard that before” moments with this release.

The traditional Trash/Death metal influenced riffs are pretty solid, but we also feel that they could have been a bit more original and diverse through the album. The nice thing about them is that not a lot of bands use them this way, so it was refreshing to get a bit of the old-school feeling with this release. The drumming on this album is pretty solid, rounding up the music nicely.

In general, “The Human Machine” is a decent old-school Death Metal album that will keep all fans of the band satisfied until their next release. But some of us will feel like Master could have done better with this release. Until the next album, we will still be playing the older stuff from the band and will keep our expectations high.

Release: April 26th, 2010

Country: USA/Czech Republic