Mr.Kill - The Day Of Reckoning

Mr.Kill are an Australian melo death group and “The Day Of Reckoning” is their debut EP. Like a short story before the big novel, it teases at a larger story with plenty of good music to enjoy. The core of Mr.Kill’s sound is rooted in groups like Sybreed and The Duskfall with lots of fast riffs, melodic solos, and snarled vocals that aren’t quite as deep of a growl from groups like Scar Symmetry but not as high pitched as Children Of Bodom- more somewhere in the middle.

The EP starts with an ambient futuristic toned intro before exploding with ‘Annihilation’. This is probably the number one track on the album simply due to the variety that Mr.Kill use. Aside from the typical mid pace with tons of excellent riffs and melodies, the band employs clean vocals here that will instantly gravitate fans who enjoy groups such as Dark Tranquillity or Soilwork. While they do sound a little auto tuned, the mechanical quality of the vocals really enhance the futuristic cyber tone the EP has, which might also draw in fans of those who like groups like Fear Factory. Unfortunately, this style is used only on this track, while the others are more your regular meat and potato style melo death with less electronic/ symphonic additions.

While the harsh vocals dominate tracks like ‘Hatred’ and ‘Oblivion’, one still has the be impressed by the guitar work, especially on ‘Valiant Amusement’ when the clean vocals serve as backing instrument and also act like keyboards to support the riffs. ‘Oblivion’ adds in some random female clean vocals to try to enhance the orchestral side of melo death, but they feel a little out of place with the rest of the music. Perhaps if they were added into the closing track ‘Elegy’ where the softer piano tones really make them heard versus being buried by the heavier riffs it might have been more effective.

Still, all these elements make Mr.Kill an exciting prospect, and hopefully with a full length album in the works the group will present a strong melo death album that can reside with the greats on labels such as Nuclear Blast Records in the vein of Amorphis, In Flames, or Hypocrisy.

4 / 5 STARS 

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1. The Descent (Intro)
2. Annihilation
3. Hatred
4. Valiant Amusement
5. Oblivion
6. Elegy (Outro)


Self released
Reviewer: Colin McNamara
Oct 4, 2020
Next review: Cytotoxin - Nuklearth

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