MASSACRE — From Beyond (review)

Album · 1991 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2016-08-12
Unitron

From Beyond is the debut studio album from death/thrash metal band Massacre.

Look, a pink metal album cover. Apart from Death's Leprosy, you don't see too many of those. Usually when the color pink is in question, things that come to mind are things such as flowers, hearts, and those obnoxious "Real men wear pink" T-shirts (No offense to those who like pink shirts). Don't let the color fool you, as this album will give you a deathly thrashing.

From Beyond is an album that is part of a strange phenomenon that I like to call a "Disputed Classic", as it's an album that has achieved classic status yet seems to have as many detractors as worshipers. These kinds of things puzzle me, as how does something reach classic status if the majority of listeners don't see it as a masterpiece? As for me though, I'm on the side of this being a classic.

Imagine if you took the crushing riffs of Metallica's Master of Puppets and threw in some Morbid Angel, you would most likely get this album as a result. While most early death metal bands were derivative of thrash, due to it forming out of the more extreme bands like Sepultura, Massacre really made death metal thrash your skull. Just check out the punchy riff of "Cryptic Remains" or the title track which just beats you over the head with a sledgehammer at light-speed. The cover of Death's "Corpse Grinder", which never made it onto a Death album, is also fantastic. Most of the songs are absolute killers though, there are only a couple songs that aren't as memorable.

There's not much else to say, if you want your death metal to thrash, this is an essential listen.

Hope you found this review helpful, feel free to comment!

more than 2 years ago
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adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Admins (and maybe mods, not sure) can already delete (not edit) shouts so it could probably be done at some point, after more pressing issues are dealt with.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Is edit/deletion of users' own shouts a possible update?

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Vim, that may be true but i'd simply rather listen to Morbid Angel, Death, Carcass... you name em! I'm glad someone finds this spectacular. I wouldn't call it bad by any means. It's a decently done death metal album. Certainly won't ever make my desert isle list for sure :P

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Part of the point of this album when it came out was that it WAS old. The original incarnation of Massacre was one of those influential underground bands like Mantas/Death, Genocide/Repulsion and Morbid Angel, whose demos got traded all over the place. It might sound generic because so many other bands either copied or were influenced by this style, it's just that it took Massacre a lot longer to release a studio album.

adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I've deleted your double shout. I agree that users of the site should be able to edit/delete their own shouts though.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Why don't these shouts have an edit or delete option?

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Just doesn't have enough varation for me. Just listened to Deafheaven. Very pink!

adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

If you're into pink covers Deafheaven have two, notably the full-length album Sunbather.

http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/artist/deafheaven

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Well, I'd say it's a lot more thrash-based then what most death metal bands were doing at the time. Standard or not, I think it does what it set out to do amazingly. Maybe I just don't care if a band is unique or not, I just care if it sounds good. ;-)

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

You can't get any pinker than boris' pink ;)

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I'm a detractor because it's about as generic of a death metal album as you can find. Name one aspect of this that hasn't been done before and much better at that

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I enjoyed this when it came out (I own a vinyl version), but today not so much. I´ll give it a listen Again at some point, before rewriting my original review.

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Obnoxious by Acid Reign is even pinker than this!