Ramon: Last year Murder Therapy from Italy surprised us pleasantly with their demo, ‘The Therapy’. They gained a lot of good criticisms with their very well chosen band name, anyone can picture a good murder therapy at certain points in his life, but the music appeared to be invitational as well. They were well underway with negotiations with the Dutch record label Deity Down records at that time. In the promotional material, they carefully express their gratitude to the fact I took the time to interview them, last time. The pleasure is all mine, especially now that I know that besides being a fine band, they are also very professional and kind blokes, with a clear view of what they want with their music. At that point I said that maybe Murder Therapy wasn’t the most original band on the globe, it is entertainment on a high level, which is worth a lot too. Well, it seems that the factor of originality has been improved upon.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so they say. So when you have a debut album, set if off right away, without an intro, without hesitation. Scream from the top of your lungs, blast all you can and show the world what you have in store from the melodic shelf, all at the same time. That must have been the idea, sort of. From the first second, you’re in, not to get out until the end. They play very solidly and they are tight, but not rigid. The sound maintains a certain playful spontaneity and at the same time it sounds way more mature than most of the bands in this genre. A hint of blast beat here and there, although it’s mid-tempos most of the time, with overdoses of double bass drumming. Screams and grunts take the spotlight manically in turns.
You wouldn’t say that this is only Murder Therapy’s second studio experience, as the piece sounds solid and sturdy. From the third song on the experimentation becomes more and more apparent. There’s some experimenting with different bars, but then again, the song is called ‘Staring At The Zodiac’, so that’s an open invitation for experimenting. Compared to the demo, it generally is a lot less straight forward and somewhat more psychotic which is easily explained by the fact that they have a new drummer in their ranks. So, there is some very clear form of growth detectable, developed in less than a year. Where will that end? Unlikely with this effort, I am sure. I still think it is a very promising band, gulping with enthusiasm. I just hope that the newly found possibilities on drums, don’t encourage them to stray from the line they have walked until now, with stranger breaks and a less full metal mentality. But I am not too afraid they would do that. By the way, there is a hidden track at the end, but it’s not really a song.
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