Review by Jeff Black – 3.5/5 Dragons
From Aprils Vandala Magazine – READ MORE REVIEWS HERE

There are a handful of things that chop my wood faster than Hexxus in Ferngully. One of them is “Contemporary Thrash Metal.” At The Gates guitar-horsing over quantized blast-beats, “dirty” vocals, nose-job’d production in the vein of Andy Sneap. I expected The Fateful Dark to have those things, but Savage Messiah must have written it with yours truly in mind.

No blast-beats. Decent riffs, maybe borrowed from Testament, plus leads lifted from Murray/Smith; A singer (remember those?) who can get way the hell up there. The modern production leaves nothing to the imagination and there’s a not-so-savage ballad on here, but you can’t win ’em all. The rest of it is a steady rotation of palm-muted stringabuse with jackhammer drumming and plenty of power metal in the choruses. Bonus edition even comes with a Diamond Head cover. Blimey!

Thumbs-up for the timely + thought-provoking cover art featuring: Papa Whatshisnamus from Ghost BC, Gene Simmon’s tongue and Yngwie Malmsteen’s stage outfit from ’92. Edgy.

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