What is it about Yorkshire that summons forth such grimness? The North of England has a grand history of producing stark, painfully austere metal and Masochist are no exception. Formed in 2012 it took little time for the band to get it together enough to record this four track slice of grimy brutality that offers up the sound of icy grindcore filtered through the bleak sonic-oppressiveness of Paradise Lost’s debut record.
‘The extent of human error’ is an impressive work, not simply because it is the band’s debut, but because it captures a sense of dread that most bands struggle to instil into their early work to quite this extent. The guitars crawl and slither over the percussion which varies between straightforward mid-tempo grind and searing blast beats, whilst the vocals are delivered with a bug-eyed insanity that recalls both napalm death and Cannibal Corpse with occasional hints of fantomas thrown in for good measure. This is not by any means music for the faint of heart and it will require strong nerves to take on all four tracks such is their overt hostility.
Opening with the succinctly titled ‘born fucked’, the eerie sample that captures your attention is taken from Stanley Kubrick’s masterful Vietnam epic ‘Full Metal jacket’ and it’s creepy tones lead you into a whirling pit of fury that claws, spits and screams at you with a coruscating sense of rage. Musically the band are clearly developing their sound, but as a starting point you could not wish for a more brutal attack. The vocals are impressively varied and delivered with rare ferocity whilst the music flails at the listener with genuine malice and spite. The charmingly titled ‘crucify the whore’ is arguably less extreme, the tempo largely kept to a lurching grind, although at key points the gears shift and the band suddenly take flight, often catching the listener by surprise. ‘Iron reign’ kicks off with a riff that recalls vintage thrash at its peak (think early Megadeth or Slayer), only with vocals tethering the track firmly within the death metal camp; there’s a real punk fury to the band’s attack, and it seems remarkable that Masochist have accomplished such a sound in the space of less than twelve short months. Final track ‘mass machine operative’ does a good job of capturing the repetitive industrial brutality of the titular occupation, with a memorable riff that scythes out of the speakers with real force whilst the concept recalls the inspiration that led to bands such as Godflesh and Naplam Death to develop such an inspired and gruelling sound in the first place.
Overall Masochist have developed a powerful, intense sound that belies the short time they’ve been active. Powerful, grim and shocking, ‘the extent of human error’ is boosted by the fact that the band are not afraid to experiment with tempos and sounds, providing that all-important sense of variation that keeps things fresh. The production is clear enough, although it (unsurprisingly) lacks the clarity and punch of Napalm Death or Cannibal Corpse, although such a raw sound also works in the band’s favour, the end result being an EP that reeks of the underground. Uncompromising and violent, Masochist have a great future ahead of them if they can maintain a standard of this quality.
