Review by Carl on July 23, 2022.

I guess the easiest way to put this into perspective is like this: what Germany's Warhammer is to Hellhammer, Massacred is to Mortician. And I have absolutely no problem with that. At all.

This could just as well be a lost Mortician album, it all sounds exactly like it. The same guttural grunt, the bass and guitar tuned so low the strings are scraping the basement floor and of course the boxy drum machine running into overdrive. If there is one difference I could point out, it's that the movie samples are of lesser quality (which still isn't saying much), making me suspect they are from video games because of the bad voice acting. The rest is an exact copy, your very own Mortician clone, making the line between tribute and plagiarism really thin at times. And the funny part is that it does not bother me one bit. It sounds just as crushing as the original and has aggression oozing out of every orifice, and on top of that it is truly fascinating to hear the amount of attention Massacred has put into this to get everything to sound exactly as Mortician. And I'm having a genuine blast with this album!

There are only two ways to approach this release: either you deride it as a total clone and the epitome of utter creative laziness, or you enjoy every second, simply reveling in every aspect of it. I am definitely in that last category, and as long as the original Masters of Brutality are sitting on their hands when it comes to a new album, Massacred will do just fine.

Rating: 8 out of 10