### Martyr: Warp zone

#### 26/07/07 || The Duff

In finding such an amazing album with Martyr’s latest, “Feeding the Abscess”, and never finding a shortage of praise for this album whilst researching the band somewhat, I decided to track “Warp Zone” down to see if I could be treated to an album on par with what I had just experienced. Hopes were definitely high for this one, as although “Feeding the Abscess” appeared to receive a number of mixed reviews, all of them stated this album’s brilliance, especially those written by people who found “Feeding…” to be a disappointment. Well, maybe I’m just coming at the band from the wrong direction, but I don’t find “Warp Zone” quite as tantalizing as this band’s follow-up album. Still good though, so here’s the rundown… of the penis… in your face…

“Warp Zone” can best be described as “quaint”, where all the bits and pieces slot comfortably alongside each other, and the guitars/bass and drums impress due to technique and so forth, but where I’m not getting anything that makes the album instantly stand out and make me feel as though it demands my attention. “Feeding the Abscess” was an album that was exceedingly attractive on a musical front, as well as incredibly fluid; with this, I’m getting an album that on the whole flows just as smoothly as its successor, but which doesn’t provide that same musical euphoria.

The Martyr of six years ago seem to have been a lot more focused on the handful of outstanding riffs inserted into each song, and have spent more time on crafting the crazy technical parts around these, as opposed to focusing heavily on the flow of each song; I think that for this reason, this album just doesn’t tickle me quite in the same way – instead of getting a nowadays almost obsolete sound in death metal, I get something that I could just as easily get from a band like Decapitated or Cryptopsy, sure, the crazy leads aren’t present on the aforementioned bands’ respective works, but the meat of each song (the one or two really crushing riffs) are fundamentally identical, and as such I’m given little reason to return to “Warp Zone” all that often when I have bands I admire more already in my possession.

For this reason, I would recommend this if you like stuff like Gorod and the likes (but then, even Gorod’s “Leading Vision” had more to offer – that certain special “something”), where you get the quirky leads much akin to Cynic and Co., but you also get a great deal of meaty riffing, with chug-fests galore etc. Others who approached this band backwards, like myself, would probably enjoy this just as much as “Feeding the Abscess” (I mean, the ingredients are essentially replicate on both efforts), but you may be somewhat disappointed – the tracks don’t have that seamless flow of those off “Feeding the Abscess”, even though every song presented here runs from one to the next very tirelessly. In as short as possible, this is a great album, just not consisting of the same magic as I was hoping for, probably deserving an eight just as much as “Feeding the Abscess” was of receiving a nine, I’m going to be a bastard and let my own judgment interfere with the scoring.

7 hopeless reviews out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2000
- Label: Galy Records
- Website: www.martyr-canada.com
- Band
- Francois Mongrain: bass, vocals
- Pier-Luc Lampron: guitars
- Daniel Mongrain: guitars, vocals
- Patrice Hamelin: drums

- Tracklist
- 01 Warp Zone
- 02 Virtual Emotions
- 03 Endless vortex towards erasing destiny
- 04 Deserted Waters
- 05 Carpe Diem
- 06 The Fortune-Teller
- 07 Speechless
- 08 Retry? Abort? Ignore?
- 09 Realms of Reverie