Review: Maxdmyz – 'The Hate Plane'

MAXDMYZ
'The Hate Plane'
RENEGADE RECORDS

Industrial metal quintet Maxdmyz return with their latest offering in the form of the rather substantial 'The Hate Plane'. Weighing in at thirteen tracks the band use the room to explore a broader array of genres than you might expect. With one foot still planted in their electronically augmented thrash roots the band throw in a little nu metal, power metal and hardcore for good measure. The end result takes in influences from the likes of Fear Factory, Rammstein and Prong as well as DRI, Suicidal Tendencies, Body Count, Slipknot and Pantera.

It does come off as a little scatter-gun in quite a few places as though the band are focussing more on adding more to their sound than streamlining the results into a unified album. But nonetheless there are some pretty great tracks such as the thrash worshipping openers 'Cyanide' and 'Grieve', the industrial metal of 'Void', and the wonderfully dark and sumptuous sing-a-long 'All', the infectious 'Turncoat Soul'.

The band don't always get it right as the lies of 'Hate In Justice' can attest too. It's musically quite solid track but the vocals don't quite match up. Whereas 'Hate In Justice – Thrash' included at the end of the album sounds much more rounded. While the Bixie Lix remix of 'Grieve', although rather excellent in its urban electronic slant, feels rather superfluous to the track listing.

The album is fairly solid in terms of production with a nice solid backbone to it that forces its way out of the speakers. And regarding of individual performances you can't really fault the band. Especially vocalist Twister who shows off an impressive range from death grunts to heavy metal wails.

'The Hate Plane' in terms of its sound does add some new and interesting elements to the Maxdmyz sound. Incorporating them has been a little hit an miss here. But when it works, it works well. It just feels like it needs a little more focus and fine tuning to get things to really gel.

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