Shatter Messiah
Never To Play The Servant

February 2007
Released: 2006, Dockyard 1/Sound Pollution
Rating: 2.0/5
Reviewer: Anders Sandvall

I noticed that this album has already been praised by another reviewer in the Metal-Rules staff, but I’m of a different opinion regarding NEVER PLAY THE SERVANT.



The band was formed by the former Nevermore and Annihilator guitarist Curran Murphy and the music sounds like he put Annihilator and Nevermore in a blender. The musical similarities with those acts are so remarkable that you wonder if Murphy took leftover material from them to use in Shatter Messiah. The fact that singer Greg tries to sound like Nevermore’s Warrel Dane doesn’t help Shatter Messiah to sound better either.



Sure, the members can play well and it sounds OK, but at the end of the day I can’t shake the feeling that the band sounds like a carbon copy of Murphy’s old bands. I’m sure the band is going to sell a lot of copies of NEVER PLAY THE SERVANT, but I’d rather lay back and enjoy some of the other bands instead. I really wish that some of the 14 tracks were going to prove that I was wrong, but that isn’t the case and this “cover” band can’t gain my appreciation in any way.



http://www.soundpollution.se