Master are a largely unrecognised first wave American death metal band from Chicago. I first posted about these guys (in a different incarnation) at the end of November with my rant about the Deathstrike "Fuckin Death" LP reissue on Dark Decent Records. Late last year Doomentia Records from the Czech Republic decided to reissue their debut s/t LP in a press of 500 copies in total. Mine's on clear wax, and from what I can tell this was the only variation of the press.
As always with Doomentia, presented here is an absolute A class package. To start- a brilliant, thick gatefold sleeve, foil stamped with the original artwork of the bands stark red logo on a black background.
Inside the shiny gloss sleeve is this matt page glued directly to the card sleeve. Containing various liner notes and lyrics, it's something I haven't seen before, and had it not been done properly I think it could have turned out pretty messy. No such luck here though. Very good job.
Not to be confused with the bands earlier, 1985 'unreleased' s/t LP (that saw an official release on From Beyond Productions in 2003), this album was originally unleashed by Nuclear Blast Records back in 1990. These guys have always been somewhat overlooked by the wider death metal scene in favour of bands like Autopsy and Morbid Angel and I think I can speculate as to why. By the time 1990 and this album rolled around, albums like "Altars Of Madness", "Severed Survival" and "Slowly We Rot" had already more or less defined a new world of massively heavy American death metal. The wider scene had now been exposed to Master with this new album, but at that point it was nothing ground breaking. Little did most know that five years earlier their actual first LP helped influence all of those widely known bands via a leaked tape version that saw minimal rounds. One could make the argument that had that first album actually seen a larger scale release in '85, Master would most likely be a household name along with a lot of those Floridan greats. Such is life.
As always with Doomentia, presented here is an absolute A class package. To start- a brilliant, thick gatefold sleeve, foil stamped with the original artwork of the bands stark red logo on a black background.
Inside the shiny gloss sleeve is this matt page glued directly to the card sleeve. Containing various liner notes and lyrics, it's something I haven't seen before, and had it not been done properly I think it could have turned out pretty messy. No such luck here though. Very good job.
Not to be confused with the bands earlier, 1985 'unreleased' s/t LP (that saw an official release on From Beyond Productions in 2003), this album was originally unleashed by Nuclear Blast Records back in 1990. These guys have always been somewhat overlooked by the wider death metal scene in favour of bands like Autopsy and Morbid Angel and I think I can speculate as to why. By the time 1990 and this album rolled around, albums like "Altars Of Madness", "Severed Survival" and "Slowly We Rot" had already more or less defined a new world of massively heavy American death metal. The wider scene had now been exposed to Master with this new album, but at that point it was nothing ground breaking. Little did most know that five years earlier their actual first LP helped influence all of those widely known bands via a leaked tape version that saw minimal rounds. One could make the argument that had that first album actually seen a larger scale release in '85, Master would most likely be a household name along with a lot of those Floridan greats. Such is life.
1 comment:
This Doomentia reissue has a different mix/mastering from the original Nuclear Blast release... however I think I prefer the former mix. It also has an extra Death Strike song thrown in for some weird unknown reason.
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