Bastard Saints followed Sinister's third full-length recording, Hate, and finds the band's music being taken into a slightly different direction. It is also the final recording to feature vocalist Mike Van Mastrigt, one of the founding members of the group. Basically, this comes off as a sort of farewell release, so the question is whether or not this one will have a stronger performance on it, as well as whether or not it will feature the same kind of sound that Hate had.
It's clear with this release that the band's material was starting to move into a more digital period of recording. Much of the group's raw sound seemed to vanish with Hate, and with Bastard Saints, the material feels like it lost some of it's bite. While the music is essentially the same groovey kind of early Death Metal style that they had worked on since the start of their career, the material here doesn't sound as rich as previous efforts, and in the end it kind of hurts the release. Right from the start of the title track, "Bastard Saints", the recording feels a little hollow. The guitars have a much lighter and higher pitched distortion to them leaving the band's music to feel like a generic Death Metal album musically. The vocal performance is also much clearer on this one, being able to understand the vocals, which is a plus, but at the same they don't quite feel like a strong gutteral performance lacking any real discernable qualities to make the music sound any more intense then what it's already giving off. The only times the music really picks up is when the band pulls a throwback to their Cross the Styx album and throws in random blast beats, such as near the end of that title track.
The EP does manage to pick up after that track, but again feels more interesting during the blast beats, though the songs themselves do feel heavier, but never necessarily really brutal. The vocals on "Cross the Styx" sound strong, trying to take a deeper approach, but near the end during the last few lines he belts some vocals quickly that actually go off the charts and take on more static then actual vocals. The song itself is catchy with the groovey Death Metal approach, but with the hollow sound it's just a bit disheartening. "Rebels Dome" is a stronger track, but again lacks any sort of genuine Death Metal brutality to it thanks to the clearer production and lighter guitars. "Epoch of Denial", however, has a strong vocal performance that is much deeper, though obviously through effects due to the heavy echo that actually leads them to sound a little empty in the final product, but still deep and rather intimidating against nicely paced groove Death Metal schords that also feel a little heavier then anything else on this EP with drums that hammer away at the listener right from the start.
Honestly, the EP is really disheartening. The music on here sounds good, but it's just high pitched. It doesn't have that energy to it either that other releases have offered. "Epoch of Denial" does capture that energy, as well as manages to bring in some brutality to it, but the rest just feel way too light. "Rebels Dome" also just feels like a cluttered mess of the band trying to incorporate a lot of technical guitar work into the heavier groovey and slightly melodic sound of the track. While it's far from bad, it's far from good. Bastard Saints really is just one of the band's better efforts, whether it's due to the band itself, or the overall quality of the recording with their instruments. The brutalizing, aggressive, commanding sound is gone, which had departed the band somewhat on the previous full-length, Hate, so in a sense it should come as a shock. It's just sad that there's really only one good Death Metal track on this release that actually will get the listener's head to bang, whereas the others are just boring and sound like every other Death Metal band at that time.
|
