“Fuck this world! Let it burn!“
Hull’s Mastiff return for their fourth full-length album since 2021’s Leave Me in the Ashes of the Earth with the sonically crushing Deprecipice. Bringing to mind the hatred of NAILS, the guitar tones of Bolt Thrower, and the modern output of At the Gates – such as that heard on 2018’s To Drink from the Night Itself – the East Riding natives serve up 10 tracks of their signature blend of sludge and hardcore that either doesn’t know the meaning of relenting or doesn’t care to.
Vocalist Jim Hodge comments that the album “sums up where me and James [Andrew Lee, guitarist] were when we wrote it.” He continues, “We were both standing back on the edge of a depressive void.” Deprecipice is an album that strives to convey the many emotions found under the rather broad term ‘grief’ – white-hot anger, the ten-ton weight of depression, and the sheer blackness overall. “Void”, the album’s third track written by Lee about his mother’s passing, roars the depressive mantra: “We’re so close! To the fucking end!”. The track brings some interesting melodic ideas, commendable for a hardcore act whose heaviness remains undeniable, with anger comparable to the likes of Death Toll 80K and something that reminded me of genres of noise music.
Atop the typical chugging, low-tuned guitars, there are melodically interesting tremolo-picked harmonized guitar motifs. In some parts, particular dissonant chords that brought to mind back metal in the vein of Xasthur,bringing to the music an almost mysterious tone. Also found throughout “Void” was a strange frequency that poked out – at first, I presumed, a terrible oversight by producer Joe Clayton, who returns to production duties once again for the band on Deprecipice. Wrong however I was, soon discovering it was the unconventional addition of what I believe to be an oscillator, or, given to how noisy it is, a radio tuning between stations. Whatever it may be, it occasionally floats to the forefront of the track, sweeping up and down the higher frequencies. Producer Clayton does a good job at making this particular element an interesting part of the song rather than what ruins it – after all, this is supposed to be, to some degree, a challenging genre of music, with this particular addition likely pulling again from the likes of Noise acts like Merzbow. Further noise influences pop up on the next track, “Cut-Throat”, which features copious amounts of awesome noisy interference which carries over from the end of “Void”.
Supposedly, the band recorded everything on the album in the space of a week, to try and retain that fire all too often lost with modern recording technology, which allows for a level of perfection unattainable with tape. This is what often ruins music today, with musicians and producers going all-out-George Lucas on their work until they have achieved a scientifically perfect production. But who wants to listen to a sterile, scientifically accurate piece of music; especially hardcore, the fucked up child of the punk family? Although, in my opinion, they have taken a slight step back in terms of production quality from Leave Me in the Ashes of the Earth, Deprecipice’s production suits the music perfectly. The whole mix feels like a punch in the face, as it should. The kick tone is exemplary for this style of music, and though the guitars work well, the tone used could do with a little opening up. Notable also is a lack of dynamics – in this instance, the temptation is to say that because there is a lot of distortion at play, this much compression is unnecessary, as much of the mix is already saturated; however I am not going to give into temptation. I personally believe that the lack of dynamics found on Deprecipice works well in keeping the music intense. I also found there to be a touch too much high-end, but that is not to say the album sounds terrible at all, in fact, the high end you could say counter-balances nicely the amount of low end. Overall – a fantastic job is done by Joe Clayton in keeping the music sounding professional, but also keeping the excitement and liveness of a track that feels like it could fall apart any second.
A personal highlight was track eight, “Pitiful”. The track is heavy as all balls and has all the typical hardcore stuff you could ever want, including a breakdown prefaced by vocalist Hodge yelling, in a moment of extreme Hatebreed-ity, “Fuck this world! Let it burn!”. With low-riffs-aplenty and a refreshing amount of perceptibly real anger and raw emotion in the vocal performance especially, this is what I want out of this style of music. Track seven (“Endless”), on the contrary, sets Deprecipice apart from solely being a hardcore album, presenting not only hardcore influences, but a track that wouldn’t be out of place on the next Cannibal Corpse album. I also heard Slayer in this track, and wondered if this is how “Reign in Blood” sounded to people in 1986.
Earlier, I mentioned what I believe to be Mastiff’s noise influences showing. These crop up again in track 9, “The Shape”. Noise or not, tracks like this demonstrate that Mastiff are a band who are interested in a little experimentation when it is appropriate. “The Shape” is a weird little track which strongly reminded me of Mayhem’s “Weird (Manheim)” from the Deathcrush EP. Track 10, “Thorn Trauma” catches the listener off guard like the heavy part of “Weird (Manheim)” does, but also eventually building back to the strange motif heard on “The Shape” toward the end of the song, ending the album in a fantastic, interesting and honestly rather epic way.
Overall, Mastiff present a fantastic hardcore album that does more – and retains the crushing heaviness fans will have been craving from a new Mastiff release. Demonstrating that Mastiff are one of the bands at the forefront of modern hardcore, Deprecipice conveys an angry grief that as we know comes from a place grounded in unfortunate reality. The production, though in my opinion a step back in terms of quality from the band’s previous release Leave Me in the Ashes of the Earth, suits the band’s sound and brand of hardcore perfectly, so fans will not be disappointed to find great songs with production that ruins them. An album for the consideration of the angry and depressed alike, Deprecipice will surely find itself high up on the year-end rankings for metal and hardcore releases.
8/10
Leave Me in the Ashes of the Earth releases through MNRK Heavy on the 22nd March and can be pre-ordered here.