Austria’s Mastic Scum recently celebrated their twentieth anniversary, but the energy the members inject in their songs are far away from ‘guys being old’. The band has always been one of my favourite Alpine Grind / Death combos, with a hand full of great releases on their discography, appearing every three or four years. In the early years, Mastic Scum brought a nicely equilibrated crossover of deadly Grindcore and grinding Death Metal, yet as from 2010’s Dust on (review posted in early May 2010; visit the Archive-tab of the site), the Grind-elements were less present, in favour of more technical colossality.
This newest epos, having a length of forty four minutes, was mixed at the Metalforge Studio by Mike Kronstorfer and mastered by Tue Madsen at the famous Antfarm Studio. The album goes further where Dust ended, with a perfection in balance Old School – Modernism. When it comes to the first, the Old School approach, I need to mention the traditional structures, including riffs that made the American and European scene so wonderfully correct. And with the labelling ‘modernism’, I am talking ‘bout the updated approach, leaving evident simplicity and average mediocrity far behind. Not many bands succeed to do so, but Mastic Scum do (once again). Beware: the ‘modernist’ approach has nothing to do with a progressive / avant-garde approach, for this band is not another act that tries to hide insecurity and unprofessionalism by (conf)using (with) experimental breaks or hooks. The band rather focuses on draconic power, elaborated through technical craftsmanship and hammering / battering extremism than showing ‘how good they are with their instruments’. Which brings me to a nice compliment: CTRL is a cohesive masterpiece, rather than a collection of individual plays. And it still holds the initial grinding roots from old in several aspects (breaks, accelerations, vocals etc.), but very much in the vein of Dust, the focus turned onto a technical Post-Death approach instead of the traditional grinding terror-beated violence that characterised the earliest years.
Conclusion: another top-release within the most extreme Death Metal regions, and therefore highly recommended to all fans of, well, extreme Death Metal just like that!