Mastiff
For All The Dead Dreams
(Church Road Records)
Mastiff are a band we’ve been following for a long while. Any band that has a guitarist with a Boss HM2 tattoo is great by us, and the tone here is pure chainsaw rage. Soliloquy is pure heads-down fury, the type of which recalls prime Entombed brought into modern focus with primal UK filth. Vocalist Jim Hodge is at his brutal bellowing best, and the production here by UK wunderkind Joe Clayton is set to explode. Rotting Blossoms is a D-Beat jolt to the heart more potent than an adrenaline shot. It possesses a circle pit-friendly breakdown that is simply crushing, and it exits, leaving you feeling like you just spilt the wrong pint. Recent single Decimated Graves hits you with blast beats and tempo shifts, and you realise this lean, mean, killing machine isn’t wasting a second, and their mission is to get in and out and leave as many jaws on the floor as possible. Jim’s prolonged roar at the end of the track destroys. A Story Behind Every Light is slightly deeper in tone. However, it still drills into your cranium, and closer Corporeal hits you with grinding savagery that evokes the power of high-rise demolition. All in all, if you’re a fan of feeling like you’ve just picked a fight with a very angry northern grizzly bear, which we are, this is a treat for you!
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Review By George Miller