MASSAKER, First Attack (2009, demo)

The skull:
It’s hard to tell if the drawing is just terrible, or if this weirdly squished skull is supposed to be a “gray,” those bug-eyed aliens always probing someone’s rectum. We’ll assume it’s just an ugly human, because how would a supersciency spaceman find himself in such dire, and utterly human, straits? Impaled on a cross and decorated with a bandolier, this guy has clearly run afoul of the same liturgical vigilantes that have stuck countless other skulls on crosses in the past. It’s a rotten way to go, I imagine.

The music:
Sloppy thrash from Brazilian youngsters, First Attack is not so much raw in the Dorsal Atlantica, “Thrash was just invented and we’re still trying to figure out how to do it” way but in the, “I’m at least as good on guitar as the guy on the first Dorsal Atlantic album, so how hard can making a thrash demo be?” way. Bad songs, bad playing (especially from the drummer), and infuriatingly shitty production are the three calling cards of Massaker, as this demo is their only release to date. This band is never going to get better, and on the off chance they do, they’ll want to distance themselves as much as they can from this stinker.
— Friar Johnsen