This Present Wasteland

This Present Wasteland is a traditional heavy-metal album that METAL CHURCH paints with thick guitars, hard rhythm and weighty vocals. The third album of the Ronny Munroe era, it is a record where themes fixed on a ruined present strongly resonate with a heavy, sinking sound. It lets some thrash-born sharpness show while keeping at its core a traditional style that values both melody and weight, and matching apocalyptic, desolate themes, the playing stays tight throughout. On “The Company Of Sorrow,” “Perfect Crime,” “Deeds Of A Dead Soul” and “Crawling To Extinction,” concise but strongly memorable riffs line up, pushing through on the band’s basic persuasiveness rather than flash. On “Meet Your Maker,” “Monster,” “War Never Won,” “Mass Hysteria” and “Breathe Again” too, concise riffs and hard rhythm stack up to hold tension from start to finish. The contrast between mid-tempo weight and well-placed acceleration gives the album shape. Carefully refining the stylistic beauty cultivated over a long career, it is a record combining a weathered feel with real strength.