{"id":11110,"date":"2013-03-19T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=11110"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:54:08","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:54:08","slug":"album-review-the-modern-age-slavery-requiem-for-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-the-modern-age-slavery-requiem-for-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"THE MODERN AGE SLAVERY – Requiem For Us All (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE MODERN AGE SLAVERY
Requiem For Us All<\/strong><\/span>
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\nPavement Music (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 5.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The strangely named The Modern Age Slavery is an Italian death metal band that combines grindcore elements with polished death metal values \u2013 I\u2019m guessing some people will call this style of music \u201cdeathcore\u201d?<\/p>\n

This is very much a modern affair that relies heavily on those full-throttle drums, hyper guitar grinds and harsh bellows courtesy of frontman Giovanni Berselli. The main problem with this is that although it\u2019s technically precise and often brutal, it completely lacks originality and for its relatively short duration (34 minutes) does nothing for this listener, hurtling by like some rabid, out of control dog whose bark is worse than its potentially fatal bite.<\/p>\n

The Modern Age Slavery are accomplished musicians, there\u2019s no doubt about that, and they shine first and foremost when tracks such as \u2018Obedience\u2019 are broken down; the drums and jarring guitars stand out, causing a fracture in the hyper-blast dynamics that saturate this opus. But for me it\u2019s all a bit of a blur. \u2018The Silent Death Of Cain\u2019 and slightly slower \u2018Ivory Cage\u2019 reaches their maximum ear-splitting capacity, providing trigger-drum tech fests and unrestrained blast-beats, but differentiating them from another foetid bout of face-ripping in the form of \u2018Opiate For The Masses\u2019 is my problem.<\/p>\n

Overall, Requiem For Us All<\/em> is a rather formulaic affair, bogged down by the predictable extremity that seems to hinder so many of today\u2019s reputedly hideous bands.<\/p>\n

As expected, the production on this platter is of the highest quality, with every instrument leaping out from the speakers as if it were a leviathan rising from the sea, the jaws snapping hard at its potential prey. \u2018Requiem To A Nation\u2019 is more of an interlude, a slow-building drum-drenched plodder fuelled by macabre newsreader-style commentary which leads us to the cover of Sepultura\u2019s 1991 classic \u2018Arise\u2019, made almost unrecognisable by the hideous drumming of Greg and the hyper guitar attack of Cocco and Sym, while Berselli\u2019s vocal rasp doesn\u2019t allow the track to breath.<\/p>\n

Fans of old school death metal will find this clinical, polished style of death metal rather alien, smothered by the technical yet almost remote structures and dynamics. While Gorguts\u2019 Obscura<\/em><\/a> (1998) remains one of my all-time favourite death metal albums, The Modern Age Slavery, in their quest for modern warfare, quite simply leave me uninterested, and when the final whistle blows it\u2019s a sound I welcome with open arms, because, sadly, this type of refined death metal just leaves me cold. Each to their own, but in a world of so many same-sounding bands, The Modern Age Slavery are way down the list of must-hears.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE MODERN AGE SLAVERYRequiem For Us All Pavement Music (2013)Rating: 5.5\/10 The strangely named The Modern Age Slavery is an Italian death metal band that combines grindcore elements with polished death metal values \u2013 I\u2019m guessing some people will call this style of music \u201cdeathcore\u201d? This is very much a modern affair that relies heavily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,563],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-the-modern-age-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11110"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12101,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11110\/revisions\/12101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}