Band: MAN MUST DIE
Record: No Tolerance For Imperfection
When Relapse Records signed MAN MUST DIE on, they must have sensed the massive intensity of these four Scots from Glasgow. Located in Death Metal, you notice just after a second that there is going on something different than at other representatives of this genre. MAN MUST DIE lager-lout in such a powerful way that you can just describe it as an Extreme-Grind-Core massacre of superlatives – still MMD "just" wants to be classified as a Death Metal band.
After 2007s bombardment "The Human Condition" it's now their third full-length record (the second with "Relapse Records") titled "No Tolerance For Imperfection."
No Tolerance is the keyword that fits this band like the fist IN THE FACE!
The album consists of 11 murderous killer-tracks, each song on it's own a fusillade that drills directly into your auditory canals. When there have been some critics of the predecessor's sterile touch of the recording and the inhuman drum-attacks (from ex-member John Lee) with "No Tolerance For Imperfection" MMD sounds dirty again and more directly than ever before.
MAN MUST DIE know their roots and keep on pushing the gas pedal. Guitar riffs and doublebass-tempests mow down everything that comes in their way and frontman Joe McGlynn growls his lyrics into the mike like he is obsessed with hate and rage.
Unfortunately such an "auto-fire" can get boring very fast. The guys decorate the songs with really nice harmonies and melodies and try to get a variety into it, but the brutality of this CD still lives on and after some rotations the record seems to be like a munitions dump that just fires its bullets without aiming.
A short breather is intermezzo #8 "What I Can’t Take Back" which does without any lyrics, before it really kicks ass in the last three songs.
It seems at if the guys use their instruments as weapons. Absolutely nameable are the songs "Gainsaye", "Kill It. Skin It. Wear It." and "It Comes In Threes" which go hand in hand with the title of the record – there is nothing a grinder's heart could miss.
Maybe a little bit less could have been more.
With MAN MUST DIE you do not miss the mark and when you are looking for one of the most brutal albums of 2009 with "No Tolerance For Imperfection" you are going the right way, but unfortunately you can hardly find any diversifications.
Assessment: 4/5
Author: Bernhard Steiner
"These songs are a new distilled version of Man Must Die, straight to the point lyrically and musically, super tight guitars, insane drumming, and vocals to tear your face off! This is the next step up for Man Must Die!" so says Danny McNab perfectly describing the characteristic of the new album."..."No Tolerance For Imperfection" was recorded with painful precision and effort, we all sweated blood for this CD and cant wait to get this beast out..." and i think it's very true. "No Tolerance For Imperfection" gets a title that is a program, cause it is razor-like precise, but not for that there is a lack of underground spontaneous creativity. However it gets a mature aspect, thanks to the presence of dark "ingredients".
Indeed, this beast, follow-up to ‘07’s The Human Condition, is actually a great merciless work. A blast of brutal Death Metal with both ferocious and technical sides, but also a messenger of moments of melodic and obscure structures like in the slower, hypnotic instrumental What I Can't Take Back, dark, darker, in one word "noir". A bit more of 3 minutes of excellent performance, surely one of the best tracks here.
A melodic although devastating touch reigns also in
Gaynsayer. Gaynsayer is a masterpiece, surely one of the best metal extreme songs of the year. In this song the similarity with Kataklysm (especially in the growling vocals), lurking throughout the album, reaches its peak ( as in
Reflections from within too), nonetheless, the guitar riffing and in particular the lead sound is different. I mean, Man Must Die are able to show a personal imprinting which blossoms in an original restless conception of the tremolo guitar-technique and bass integration and cohesion, while drums, by new-in-the-lineup Matt Holland, are fast and blasting but again no copy-cut of
the Canadian hyperblasters .
Survival of the Sickest, the short song that closes the album, is another super and particular work that
unites force and darkness. With a big atmospheric touch, opened by a dark impressive carpet, this track develops a touching melody "told" by abyssal vocals, commanding background and by a protagonist dark guitar that will literally meet a very rainy end. As often happens for extreme bands, the opener (and title track) is a discharge of violent, cynic fists on your teeth oriented to show how wild, complex, but also critical the band can be. And, needless to say, it is the track which i don't like, because it doesn't represent the ferine beauty of the rest of the album but only the hardly tamed rage of the reactive side of the combo. Lyrically interesting but not ..."beautiful".
Those who want it fast, killing, a*s ripping yet..."beautiful" can have a bath of banging lust with the excellent Kill it Skin it Wear it, a blasting explosion embellished by a breakdown intermezzo with adamantine drops of transfused melodic harmonic chords. Or with the violent spiky Dead in the Water. Reflections from within is another beautiful track possessed by a strong melodic stream too, with bridges inserting nice acoustic- like guitars and dark lead solos, only pity that the analogy with Kataklysm in the composition can superficially appear really strong, this time. How the Mighty have fallen also belongs to the brutal-supreme category but this track, on the contrary, finds a different development if compared with the previously mentioned ones, attractive for Suffocation or Cryptopsy fans. Right is the use of the word "development", because the most songs seem to jump from the same initial first chords, like from a similar cocoon, but immediately each song gets its unmistakable face, so that Man Must Die can be identified as great actors, and warriors, of this genre.
rating: 9/10