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photosOrgan Magazine - October 2005 album of the week (Perfect Picture of Wisdom And Boldness)
"Yes indeed, The Mass one of the finest bands in world and the new album is on the way. It goes by the name of PERFECT PICTURE OF WISDOM AND BOLDNESS and it’s out in the UK on Monotreme (and in the US on Crucial Blast), The second Mass album, it’s a little deceptively straight forward first time out, or at least the opening Dillinger flavoured hardcore punky thrash metal onslaught of This is Your Final Dream is – hang on though, hang on! Don’t let that first track fool you, Perfect Picture is even more extreme/moody/refined/mellow/violent/progressive highwire energy. Perfect Picture is even more King Crimson for Slayer fans who like big passages of reflective progressive mellow sax discordance and huge slabs of the heaviest experimental 70’s flavoured progressive hardcore metal, 143% burnt, electric shocks and Meditation On The Some Carcass. Plague mice to burn your hope with defiant pendulum-sweet time trips and a fluid awkwardness that draws a line in the sand and faces the beast and the hoards and the scream - even the jarring jagged bits are fluid and intense, even the quite bits and slab heavy and that sax is the only one to rival Jaxon (we already mentioned Van Der Graaf too many times already, we can’t get away with it again! This is X factor laced VdGG for Slayer fans, just pretend we were not over the top enough to say that in print OK!). Yeah yeah yeah, another over the top review from those god damn Organs, I couldn’t give a flying toadturd, great music excites me, The Mass excite me more than anyone – THE MASS ARE AWESOMEEEELLY THRILLINGLY AWESOME and this is even better than the first album."
everything2.com (Perfect Picture of Wisdom And Boldness)
"They Zorn through styles of rock heavitude: black metal, grindcore, spooky jazz, Sabbathed-up diabolical funk, falsetto and growls, what-have-you. But you see the intricate progressions, and then there you are headbanging at their shows. Time signatures change and you're rocking out. And it's so predatory and muscular. --Like their name; cuz listening to them, you don't think of a Catholic mass at all, more like a mass of say variegated tissues lodged in your brain, tickling the back of your throat: little teeth, hanks of hair, tendons pulling at tiny misformed musculatures. Alive and full of this and that gnawing at itself. Then that all gets married to this loping preying malevolent jazz storyline. It's crunchy as charred barbecue cast in bronze, if you can picture that, looking all caveman-like and animalistic and regressive. There's the pageanty of its teleology. It's downright inexorable."
Rock Sound Magazine - November 2005 (Perfect Picture of Wisdom And Boldness)
"WHO? Four gents from Oakland, CA, whose second album shows off, equally, their snaking jazz chops and hairy heavy metal fists
SOUNDS LIKE? A band from about a decade back called Creedle, since you asked. Damn, Creedle were great. More recently, Neurosis and Fantômas.
STANDOUT TRACK? ‘Corpsewielder’.
VERDICT? Visceral where others might be merely pretentious. Thus good."
(7/10)
Classic Rock Magazine - November 2005 (Perfect Picture of Wisdom And Boldness)
"'Relentless, brutal and razor-sharp mulitcore...with sax!'
It is a very, very rare thing to hear a truly original record these days and even then it's not necessarily a good thing. (There's a reason whyno-one has mixed country n' western and drum & bass together; itwould obviously sound awful.)
But this is no just-for-the-sake-of-it hybrid. The Mass have all but abandoned their mathcore roots (apart from on the short, sharp shock of Gas Pipe) to embrace straight-up thrash and doon rock, which mutates into evil post-hardcore (Ride Of The Juns) and slower, almost jazzy pieces featuring frontman Matt Walters on alto and tenor sax.
Playful, intense and very impressive."
8/10 - John Doran
The Wire - November 2005 (Perfect Picture of Wisdom And Boldness)
"The barrier between metal and jazz has been pierced again. Like Chicago’s Yakuza, the Bay Area thrash outfit The Mass augment their high-speed, staccato riffing with fluid, almost (dare I say it) harmolodic saxophone lines from vocalist Matt Walters. There are times when Walters launches into screeching, post-Ayler solos, in the manner of Steve Mackay on the Stooges’ Fun House or Bruce Lamont on Yakuza’s Way Of The Dead; the just-under-90-second “Gas Pipe” is the most extreme track on the disc, from this angle.
But most of the time he does something far more interesting, adapting the cyclical, repetitive riffs of thrash metal for the saxophone. This is a change from the last album, City Of Dis, where the saxophone was as prominent as the songs were crude; Walters floated atop the primitive guitar-bass-drums crunch like Ornette Coleman fronting Napalm Death. The moody “Meditations On The Some Carcass” is the biggest leap forward for the band, stylistically and technically; it layers a bleak sax solo atop a doom-metal death march, to excellent, almost psychedelic effect.
For the most part, though, Perfect Picture Of Wisdom And Boldness is an unsubtle, skull-cracking record that owes as much to My War-era Black Flag as it does to intricate, knuckle-popping thrash. Walters has no interest in stopping the moshpit so listeners can admire his nimble finger technique. Fans of the Flying Luttenbachers, Paul Flaherty, and whatever’s passing for underground punk rock these days will all find something here to inspire hours of spastic contortions."
Uncut Magazine - December 2003 (City of Dis)
"It’s been a good year for the still-nascent sub-genre of hardcore punk, which favours light-speed riffing, shrieksome vox and jazzy tempo shifts. Excellent albums from The Locust, Daughters and The Blood Brothers have indicated a possible way out of rock’s current trad trough. Oakland, CA’s The Mass lack the futuristic, synthoid edge of those bands, but their sax-assisted Crimson-meets-Slayer hybrid is a lot of fun. The bloodthirsty verve with which they go about their angular stories is balanced by excellent musicianship and a keen sense of dynamics. Fripp’d love it."
Metal Hammer Magazine - February 2003 (City of Dis)
"A white knuckle ride through hardcore, grind and death metal.
Somewhere between the insanity of Pigface, the hardcore ferocity of Hatebreed and the grindcore of early Napalm Death, there exists a shadowy ground where The Mass exist. Never satisfied with taking a straight path, they'd rather throw themselves off a musical precipiece, and hope their ambitions aren't dashed on the jagged rocks of commercial demands. Most of the time, these lunatics manage to avoid disaster, simply because they're good enough as musicians to stay on their feet. But this is the sort of thing that's probably best experienced live. Surely it's onstage that compositions like 'Trapped Under A Ice' (yep, you read that right) and 'Buttlip' really come into their own. Madcap, unpredictable and capable of some monstrous freeform shrieks, The Mass are a band to watch."
(7/10)
Logo Magazine - October 2003 (City of Dis)
"As though reacting to the faceless nature of contemporary music, this debut from Oakland, California’s Mass takes the trend for musical strip-mining to its logical conclusion: raping twenty years of trends to create a fierce, angular hybrid that speaks to the cynic in us all. No-Wave, post-punk, thrash metal and math-rock are crafted into a sheet of purposely ‘difficult’ avant-garde fury; yet, strangely, ‘City of Dis’ is by no means distancing. Instead, this is pure dissent, a statement that verges on the political yet avoids parody or empty moralizing. It’s what we always imagined punk was really like, a blast of fetid air blowing away the cobwebs of conformity. The Mass speak the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is."
Rock Sound Magazine - November 2003 (City of Dis)
"Calling all fans of FantÔmas, The Dillinger Escape Plan or Mr Bungle, there is a new band in town. The Mass owes most of their sound to the previously mentioned bands. Not the three minute rock standards from them , oh no, it’s all jagged rhythms and mad sax breaks. The strangest thing about ‘City Of Dis’ is the fact that it sounds cohesive. It’s not easy listening, but then I suppose it’s not meant to be. Dog Fashion Disco have a more pop mentality, whereas The Mass probably owe more to Frank Zappa’s weirder moments - I mean, how can you not love an album that contains a song called ‘We Enslaved Elves To Build Our Death Machine’? To wrap it all up in a nice box, The Mass are a euro metal (but from Oakland CA), art rock, jazz fusion, death metal, pop group. Got that? Good."
(7/10)
Losing Today (City of Dis)
"I wonder what the UK audiences will make of this lot when they descend these shores shortly, I'd like to think that their eccentricity will be well founded. The Mass are a quartet based in Oakland, California and when I tell you there's a track here entitled 'We enslaved elves to build our death machine', then you may well be reasonably alerted to the fact that things are not quite right within the Mass ranks and I'm putting that mildly because this debut is scary in the sense that it's a three pairs of pants jobbie.
Wilfully fraught, unorthodox and uncontrollable, the Mass are adept at creating a calamitous racket, this is rock 'n' roll being horse whipped, bludgeoned and thrown through the mincer. Discordant at the very least, 'City of DIS' at eight tracks in length is a charmless bastard of a record, one for those who prefer their ears and hi-fi systems running close to the point of melt down. Shellac, Melvins and John Zorn are common denominators in this lot's lives, brittle and unstable spastic rhythms and riffs taunted by the addition of an equally hostile sounding saxophone ('Marca dos Invernos'), the Mass play a critically challenging brand of crunching abstract punk that has one foot in the smoke filled jazz clubs while the other is content to kick seven bells out of the competition with its festering mutation of splintered math rock and gruesome grind core, not as demonic as Carcass but instead a slightly more playful Slayer with the dense attrition of early Fugazi.
It's provides for an unrelenting exhibition of blood curdling mayhem where the rulebook is literally torn up and an anything goes mentality is adopted. The aforementioned 'We enslaved elves to build our death machine' is the pinnacle point of the album and masks itself with a sense of devilment, a real burning cauldron of an epic, in essence its King Crimson wanting to be Led Zeppelin with hard core hooks(seriously), a menacingly hell bound doom laden opera of sorts that flickers with the notion of early 70's progressive rock yet shy's short of being pompous by continually re-finding the plot just when you think it's beyond them.
Opening with the rampant no-nonsense of 'La Porc', the Mass immediately lay down their credentials, a frenetic neck snapping lesson in stutter core dynamics, even having time to ingest, albeit momentarily, Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' before upending the plot into a violently seismic blaze of hot wiredunrest with impishly mooching saxophones aplenty. If that wasn't enough 'Trapped under a ice' ups the ante with a defiantly howling inferno of brazen hardcore. Ultimately 'City of Dis' should come stickered with a health warning saying not for the feint hearted or closed minds. Demonising your soul has never sounded so good."
Raw Nerve - UK (City of Dis)
"This is the second album I've received from Monotreme records and they seem like a rather interesting label to say the least. Lower Forty-eight provided us with some top notch TRUE emo stylings, and now The Mass bring us some chaotic rhythms and madness to really baffle and intrigue. The first minute of "La Porc" combines jagged, sharp blasts of sound, with off kilter weirdness, notes running around all over the place, a vocal with shouts odd tortures, some fantastic grooves, saxophones aiding to hurt the brain that is trying to work out what is actually going on. Imagine The Jesus Lizard impersonating Meshuggah and Fantomas, with Voodoo Glow Skulls sitting in the room whispering ideas, and Mike Patton sitting in the corner of the room taunting, pushing, influencing. Truly a twisted song, and absolutely fantastic in my eyes. The more warped the better, and this really does stand at the front of the class telling the others how it is done.
It really doesn't stop there. Getting more and more bizarre and ingenious as it goes on, stops and starts all over the place, big riffs, scarily clever sections and ideas, and the wind instrumentation certainly does help matters if you want an easy listen. "Hex by hex" reminds me of Shellac and Bob Tilton, Polaris and Tool, with scatterings of death metal style enormity thrown in. "Major strip" certainly has a Mike Patton related project sense of humour to it, most definitely Fantomas, all over the place, frantic, insane, with mad voices all over it. Also I hear a comparison to Ephel Duath coming along at this point as well. All in all, just sheer genius. And if you want a song of truly epic proportions then you need to be listening to "We enslaved elves to build our death machine" as soon as possible.
I could throw superlatives around for every song, and go into detail of the influences within each, after just touching on the first few songs, but I won't, because I could just sound like I am dropping names for the sake of it. What I WILL say is this. If you are a fan of music, clever music, intriguing music, that challenges and runs through all the apparent boundaries, then you MUST listen to The Mass, being one of the most incredibly interesting and brain warping bands I have ever heard.
Don't just take my word for it. Get this record."
Gonzo Circus Magazine - Belgium (City of Dis)
"Originating from Oakland, California, The Mass is a musical quartet leaving quite an impression with this debut of theirs. Records like these are the main reason this reviewer still is as passionate about music as two decennia ago. This is avantrock like it should be, a one way ticket out for every band longing to leave the mainstream rock circus. It’s a mixture of math rock, post punk, no-wave and trash metal. Add a good spoonful of shrieking saxophone like we remember from the better punk jazz, with vocals only found in the true grind core, a select choice of metal riffs, and foremost, a splendid musical virtuosity and instrument control, and you find yourself listening to a wall of sound guaranteeing difficult music but nevertheless is absolutely chaos free. ‘Major Strip’, e.g., is a foreplay of Fantomas and Painkiller but with a Slovenian sound like singing! At times, they sound like No Means No, but with a saxophone and a bigger Zappa influence. Think of Dillinger Escape Plan united with Mr. Bungle, think of every possible freak band and you’ll prefer The Mass every single time. A band coming up with a song called ‘We enslaved elves to build our death machine’, uniting at the same time all our musical favourites of the moment, finds it’s rightful place in our top-drawer. ‘City of Dis’ will make our neighbours redecorate their walls a few more times again."
Disagreement online - Luxembourg (City of Dis)
"Music can be so much more than the sterile crap you can listen to on top 40 radio stations. You know that, of course! But as even underground music is in danger of becoming too streamlined, it's important to look at the up and coming true independent labels who seem to be the only ones who dare to tread new paths. Monotreme is a very young label from London that has signed, among others, the Californian band The Mass. The weird thing is that they haven't been released in their home country yet, although they had Tim Green (Nation Of Ulysses, Fucking Champs) as their producer; this should already be reason enough to check them out. The first thing you notice is that the instrumental foundation of guitar, bass and drums is enhanced by vocalist Matt Waters who most of the time doesn't sing but plays saxophone in a really awe-inspiring way. The Mass probably intended their debut City Of Dis to sound very original, making it hard for the reviewer to give a precise image, as mostly noisy math rock structures coalesce with free jazz rhythms, adding occasional grind blasts. The two heart pieces come with weird song titles: Trapped Under A Ice and We Enslaved Elves To Build Our Death Machine (now, that's what I call mean). The former not only is rhythmically very intricate but also combines the most different styles (jazz of course, swing, death metal, ambient) while the latter sounds like old school thrash metal played in a North African medina. Also Buttlip shows Muslim influences and reminds me a lot of bands like Secret Chiefs 3 and Estradasphere. Of course you can do a lot of name dropping: King Crimson, Sweep The Leg Johnny, early Naked City and Dillinger Escape Plan being just a few that come to my mind, although The Mass never sound like a clone, but always try to make something very unique, like a deadly rollercoaster through the extreme regions of rock'n'roll. I suggest you check out the website of Monotreme Records where you can download three entire tracks of this album. That should convince you of the genius of this four-piece! If you like your metal jazzed up, or your jazz metal-ised, there is no way past this fantastic debut. 10 points!"
(10/10)
Scream Magazine - Germany (City of Dis)
"Sometimes, the labeller’s job isn’t easy. Lower Forty-Eight’s labelmates on Monotreme Records leave behind the fields of ordinary music even a few miles further than their compatriots. The four-piece from Oakland, California offers the demanding listener a pure treasure of dynamic and unbelievably progressive music, although one has to work hard to gain it. At first, one feels rather overwhelmed and confused by the seemingly chaotic mix of Mathcore, Free Jazz, Punk, Metal, Noisecore, Progressive Rock perverted into evil, and everything that has ever been considered new, extreme, and border-breaking – a musical terrorist like Mike Patton would take real delight in it! Although at first THE MASS just sound yet further beyond good and evil than typical Relapse-bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan or Today Is The Day, the Californians manage it with their pioneer abilities in dynamics, technique and arrangement, to tame their polyrhythmic, dissonant sound-bastard with the help of ear-drilling Metal-riffs in so far, that even with not completely cracked-up listeners, the original helplessness gives way to growing excitement after a dozen runs of CITY OF DIS.
THE MASS are, not least due to the omnipresent saxophone-parts, reminiscent of John Zorn, or rather Painkiller. The vocals reach from normal singing, over mad screaming to guttural Grindcore-growls. And the music itself, as mentioned, fucks everything that is progressive and extreme, like a genetically mutated monster-rabbit on coke. Extremely demanding, and extremely difficult to describe. And then, here’s what’s going on in the head of the slightly overcharged reviewer: “Oi, that sounds like Dillinger! No, wait, Tool... or NoMeansNo? No, no, Pig Destroyer... Agoraphobic Nosebleed? ... Er... Um... System Of A... – ah well, fuck it!!”
Barely controlled anarchy – essential for listeners who see borders just as something that needs to be broken through. THE MASS are going to tour Europe in March, for further information check out www.monotremerecords.com."
Bernhard Tischler (5.5/6 ) (English translation kindly provided by the author)
Aardschok Magazine - The Netherlands (City of Dis)
"'If Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention still existed they would be totally impressed by this record
"
(77 / 100)
soundbaseonline.com - Germany (City of Dis)
"The most complex rhythms, high-pitched screams, tempo- as well as harmony- changes – and all on an intolerably high technical level…one moment a nasty grindcore riff, the next a skewed jazz-saxophone solo…Specialist albums such as this liven up the music business"
(10/12)
sellfish.de - Germany (City of Dis)
"If you like hard, oblique sounds with hectic, nervous rhythms, this should put more beads of sweat on your forehead than a quadruple Espresso."
musikansich.de - Germany (City of Dis)
"[The Mass] employ all imaginable styles between Punk, Math-Rock, Jazz and Metal. The vocals would fit very well into a Hardcore album, and the singer further captivates with his totally hyperactive and wild saxophone breaks. The Mass are rhythmic, interesting and very change rich. An entirely strong album."
(18/20)
metalinside.de - Germany (City of Dis)
"It isn’t often that one gets to hear such musical anarchy. Great!"
alternativenation.de - Germany (City of Dis)
"Each band member performs at a very high level of musicianship, and these eight songs combine more ideas and styles than many bands have in an entire lifetime."
(8/10)
music-scan.de - Germany (City of Dis)
"outbursts of pure chaos to driving death-leads or wild drumming, interspersed with more moderate passages, the dosage of which could not be more effective…‘City of Dis’ is recommended for anyone who likes wild sound experiments."
(8/10)