Savage Messiah - Plague Of Conscience Review

In a world where thrash metal seems to be steadily leaning more and more to the harsher side of things (Warbringer, Toxic Holocaust, Skeletonwitch, etc) it's pretty nice to hear a more melodic step-back. Granted, this isn't an extremely vicious album, but who cares? It seems it's becoming just too easy to write steam-rolling thrash. Some times, it's just nice to hear thrash that can just...soar.

Don't let that fool you though, thrash is thrash. It's made for top-speed aggression. Sure, Plague Of Conscience isn't teeth-shattering aggression, but more of that epic lead-based thrash. It flies like power metal, but generally drives forward with a little more kick. The best way to picture it is some US power/traditional heavy metal hybrid with a thrash metal engine. It's got its fair amount of revivalist touches, but Savage Messiah manage to deliver it in a youthful enough way to not sound completely flavourless.

There's leads, then there's riffs. Plague Of Conscience is an album of leads, and that's where it falls a little flat. There's such a total focus on creating that top-speed, high-flying sound, that they come up short when it comes to delivering the basics; riffs to bang your head to. Here's the part where they should have taken some tips from their harsher contemporaries; this album seems like a lot of flash, and no crunch, far too often. Where there feels like there should be some great riffs layin' down the lead, there seems to be a big hole that was filled with some generic thrash rhythm section.

Overall, Plague Of Conscience is not a bad album. If anything, the band should be commended for focusing on their strongest aspect; awesome guitar leads. It just would have been nice to see them fill those in-between moments with something a little more engaging.