This month we see the reissue of a gem from the past. OK, I admit upfront, I had previously heard of these guys back in the day when they were active (late 80's - early 90's), and under their former band name, Rapture, had seen reviews of their releases; I had just never acquired a copy of their music myself. Back about six years ago, I did some MP3 demo trading with some guys online, and acquired about ten discs loaded with hundreds of old demos. Among them were both Rapture demos, as well as this release,
The Downward Spiral
. But I never really got around to listening to this, and did I ever miss out. I am impressed with this disc, and this reissue has been cleaned up, remastered, and made to sound even more amazing than the copy I had on hand.
Messenger returns with this live release for 2010, recorded during a benefit concert for Corinne's Kitchen at Arlington Assembly Auditorium. This release is available on CD as well as DVD and, believe it or not, Blu-ray. The band seems to be appearing everywhere, and in the short time since hitting the music scene, seem to be accomplishing quite a bit. I had the privilege of reviewing their first release I'm Talking to You
in a past issue of the Heaven's Metal fanzine, so before going further with the review of this new live release, I'd like to go back and cover their initial 2008 release for those of you not familiar yet with this hard rock outfit.
was a modern metal monster; with a typical vocal styles that leaned a bit more heavily on the extreme/screaming/growling style mixed with singing as most bands use these days.
was a drastic change from the first, and looked and sounded a LOT like Metallica's "Black album" with a heavy bent towards southern metal.Vocal style had little to no extreme screaming/growling style to it, but was down-and-dirty gritty singing. Most fans of the first album really didn't like this change. I personally thought it was great.