HOPELESS HOPES

There is only one review of this album before mine and it´s a real shame I tell you because this debut album from Martyr is well worth you attention if you´re into tech death metal.

The music on Hopeless Hopes is not overtly complex like many other tech death metal bands. It´s more in the vein of Death´s approach to the genre which relies more on power and aggression than on complex playing. This is not to say that the playing isn´t technical here on Hopeless Hopes. I just appreciate that the songs on Hopeless Hopes is written with the intension to blow your mind and your body, and if some technical riffing helps this cause then it´s just fine.

As mentioned Martyr is very influenced by the legendary tech death metal band Death. The riffing and jazz influenced drumming is very much in the same vein as Death. The vocals on Hopeless Hopes is a study in itself. I have a tendency to complain about the vocals on many tech death metal releases as I think too many bands use the very deep subwoofer or cookie monster vocals if you will. It´s very seldom this works for me. On Hopeless Hopes the vocals are sublime and thankfully pretty varied. On Hopeless Hopes and Inner Peace which are the most Death inspired songs on Hopeless Hopes the vocals sound very much like Chuck Schuldiner, while the vocals on other tracks sound like a young Glen Benton from Deicide. There are even some more hardcore call and respons vocals in a song like Elementals. The music is really powerful IMO and it´s very enjoyable to me.

The musicianship is very good and I like the guitar riff and the soloes, The drumming is also very good even though I don´t enjoy the badly produced click track bassdrums. Badly produced might be a bit to harsh said, but I´m not too fond of the sound on the bassdrum. The production is pretty good though.

Having listened to Hopeless Hopes a lot lately I´ve realised that I really like Martyr a lot and I think this debut album is really good. I will only rate Hopeless Hopes 3 stars. It´s 3 big stars and almost a 4 star rating though. Even though I think Hopeless Hopes is a very good album Martyr still need to improve a couple of places. This is a very promising debut though and very recommendable to fans of the band Death.