Album Review: Memoriam – To The End
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
The opening bars crash forward. The gravel coated roar echoes above the din, there’s a pause, another huge sledgehammer of a riff as the tank tracks slowly engages, and the machine grinds into gear. The artillery chug begins, the percussion rattles and the riffs get bigger. It's huge, powerful and as an album opener, ‘Onwards into Battle’ is both reassuringly familiar and yet exhilaratingly fresh.
Karl Willetts, Scott Fairfax, Frank Healy, and new drummer Spike T Smith, collectively known as the old death metal engine Memoriam from Birmingham, England are back. ‘To the End’ is their fourth album, the first in the next trilogy of albums, having closed their first chapter, the death cycle with 2018’s ‘Requiem to Mankind’. With the king having been laid to rest, Memoriam move to a celebration of the king’s life, focussing on events when he was alive. ‘To the End’ features events that lead to the scenes we’ve seen on ‘For the Fallen’.
‘To the End’ is going to shock a few people. There are plenty of changes but retains the threads from ‘Requiem to Mankind’. ‘This War is Won’ with Healy’s thunderous bass lines and the multiple tempo changes is massive, Smith’s drumming picking up where Andy Whale left off, and Willetts in gargantuan form, his instantly recognisable vocals like sandpaper over skin. ‘No Effect’ follows, a punishing, groove ridden track that opens with Fairfax’s razor-sharp guitar work. It’s a pulsing, throbbing and explosive song that is more heavy metal than death metal. It’s almost progressive in feel.
Three songs in and the change of direction is intense, intriguing, and more refreshing than a cold lager on a hot foreign beach. The theme of war is never far away but in recent times Memoriam have added more socially aware commentary. ‘Austerity Kills’ on the last album is the obvious choice, and on ‘To the End’ we get a few including the sledgehammer of ‘Failure to Comply’, a pile-driving track with a brutal hook and melody that lurks beneath Willetts’s deafening screams. The man is in imperious form, having utilised the opportunity presented by the pandemic to lay down advance demos in the studio for the first time in his 30+ year career.
Curved balls a plenty and we reach two more. Taking the sting out of the ferocious pace, but retaining the intensity in every aspect, ‘Each Step (One Closer to the Grave)’ is drenched in a death doom feel. The riffs are spectacular, huge waves that crash down, and it’s also perfectly controlled. The emotion drips, the sinews bulge and the track slowly increases in speed, Smith’s battery of double bass pedals once more racing away. The title track that follows is hewn from the same rock, with more colossal riffs and similar doom flavour, albeit with slightly more punch.
The final trio of songs don’t conform to stereotype either. ‘Vacant Stare’ is harrowing, with some blistering drumming and Fairfax giving it full throttle. But the most interesting track on the album arrives in the shape of the industrial slab of ‘Mass Psychosis’ which has Killing Joke stamped all over it. And then the finale. ‘As My Heart Grows Cold’ may be one of the best songs Memoriam have ever written. It’s pulls at the emotions from the start and is as close to a ballad as they will ever get. Raw and direct, it may also be the song that is most divisive. I don’t care.
Memoriam have taken the opportunity to expand, explore and develop their sound. ‘To the End’ is their most progressive and most organic work. It’s a testimony to the band as a collective, that after all these years they can still challenge themselves and deliver the music that they want to make. With Russ Russell’s excellent production and more fine artwork from Dan Seagrave to round it off, ‘To the End’ is an album that will finish the year high in the rankings.
