Monsterworks-The God Album

Casket Music 2011

Formed in the late nineties in New Zealand the band Monsterworks went the usual route of releasing demos and building up a local following before releasing their debut album in 2000. The God Album is lucky number seven for the band and (as the title implies) is a concept album about religion and mankind's dependency on it. While I do have some questions about the groups shaky (at best) take on theology the music itself is interesting. Comparisons have been made to Strapping Young Lad. Honestly as this was my first introduction to the group I really thought this would be Devin Townsend 101. At least that is what I had been lead to believe by reading up on the band in anticipation of this review. While I can see why people would say it I think the band is more than a clone. What you have here is traditional metal mixing with modern metal and the odd vocal styling of lead singer Jono (death growls, shrieks and clean singing). Tracks like "Everything You Believe Is A Lie" and "The Enemy Of My Enemy" offer up good old fashioned two fisted metal. They pummel you helpless and showcase how heavy the band can be. "Reprieve" on the other hand is acoustic guitars and shows off the softer side of the group. The band handles both sides effectively. That said though for a band that has been called "thinking man's metal" and is supposedly progressive on earlier efforts the album does tend to sound quite similar after awhile. Towards the end too it seems to run out of steam. It wanders around like a chicken with it's head cut off. If I could trim some of the fat off this bad boy it would be one hell of an album. As it stands though this has the feel of a "download certain songs" release.