We should all know the deal by now, legendary band AMEBIX have gotten back together and recorded their first album since 1786, SONIC MASS.
I'll just come right out and say that I am a huge fan, and have been since the 80s yet (sadly) I personally believe that the legend and patch-wearing-yet-never-heard-the-band status of Amebix actually outweighs the band itself at times. Now, I have read a few reviews of the new album (due out tomorrow) and so far it seems like everyone is divided, there is the "this isn't Amebix" side and the rest is bending over on all fours ready to get bummed by Amebix and writing these long in-depth almost pretentious reviews of the dark and lonely pagan souls of the kings of crust, most reviews read more like a school essay than a record review.
Tish! Thought I. But...now that I've heard the album and....I get it, and I'm sorry but this review won't really be any different. So on the eve of one of the most anticipated punk records this century - let's 'ave it!
So, lets start off with a little background. I first heard Amebix sometime in the late 80s way back when me, Kajagoogoo and two of the three Bros brothers were at school. It was a few years after I guess they had broken up when my guitar teacher at school got sick of me always bringing in thrash metal and death metal tapes to learn and thought it was time I got into some punk. He chose an album for me to absorb: Amebix - No Sanctuary as he'd apparently made a video for the song "Control". I've never seen this video and have no idea if it's true or if he just made it up. Anyway, the album (EP) was something else, very different to everything I had been listening to before. It actually reminded me a lot of "Blood Fire Death" era BATHORY and maybe VENOM more than what I though a punk band should sound like, but the strange warp-like discordant guitars and the tribal drums made it a real experience. This wasn't your average "punk". The lyrics spoke to me too, I really could understand this band and what they were saying, of course, like me they are born in the Devon/Cornwall area, lived in Bristol and have connections to Clevedon, and I guess we'd fill out the same age bracket on forms so it's not surprising. I didn't know any of that then mind you.
So...I continued to love the band, getting their other albums and absorbing them. Arise, Monolith, the odd bootlegged tape in the mail etc. So, fast forward to now and they have got a real cult status, people read very deeply into the band, maybe more than they should, or....I don't know, If I as a kid could feel how a band could "connect" with me then, why not.
Amebix, aka Rob and Stig Miller plus new boy all-star drummer Roy Mayorga (Soulfly, Shelter, Nausea, Sepultura, Stone Sour and more) reformed a few years back and were off playing again, wowing audiences young and old.
A new album was in the pipeline and the buzz started around the internetz. Sonic Mass was on the way. We got the single "Knights Of The Black Sun" with it's dreamy video and the punk world went...."huh?". Amebix divided opinions with the sword that was that video/song and drove it in hard,
And so is the same with Sonic Mass, on one side we have the patch-wearing-trve-crust that are saying Amebix have "sold out" and are no longer Amebix. Well to them I stand on the arse-licking side and say that they never got Amebix in the first place. They wear the patch and love the logo but never really "got" the band, possibly has an album tucked away somewhere just in case anyone comes round and checks, but it's still in the plastic wrapper - they expected an album of generic crust punk. Nopes. But go back and listen to the albums, are any of them really "crust" as we know it? Undoubtedly the basis and inspiration behind many but not crust as it has been defined these days. Amebix were always flirting with metal and that tribal blast and other influences from another place than the rest of the accepted, really Sonic Mass is no different, just better produced.
Amebix ARE dark and involved and have a lot of imagery and poetry in their music, they were always about soundscapes and painting with music. It's just they never had the tech to do it like this before.
The album kicks off with "Days" a mellow acoustic/orchestral track when Baron actually SINGS, right off the bat it sounds different, but it sounds....like something is coming, and then it kicks off with "Shield Wall" which is a bass-heavy double-bass-drum chuggy attack. Like a blast from Arise or Monolith but with tight production which leads into "The Messenger" which is our first "real" track, chuggy, heavy, almost industrial with synth and all. This is obviously where a lot of people are getting the lazy comparisons to Killing Joke from. The super-treat that will please even the crustiest of the crust elite is "God Of The Grain" a fucking full-blown rocking, stomping attack with monster riffs that would shame most of the best.
But then for me it goes a bit downhill with "Visitation" which I just can't get into, it's a slow-paced churner with spoken lyrics, feels like a filler. I guess it's part of the overall "story" of the album but I don't get it yet. Not for me, sorry chaps. Not yet anyway, every other Amebix album I've heard has been a "grower" so maybe in the future. But then comes the sweet and sour of Sonic Mass pt1 and pt2, starting with acoustic loveliness (anyone slaying Amebix for flirting with acoustic guitars etc I point you towards "Sunshine Ward", they've always been doing it) pt2 is back off again with it's slaying riffage by now we're starting to see a bit of a pattern in the songs, mostly "chuggy E......Rob shouts, anthemic chorus, chuggy E" but that's kind of how Amebix always were right?
Then it goes right off in another direction with "Here Comes The Wolf" which has the same riff as Face To Face's "I Won't Lie Down", it's almost pop-punk, so there goes the chuggy E theory. "The One" gets us back on track with a fuck-you-up-before-breakfast heads-down mid section that I defy any metal head not to start playing air guitar and head banging to, before the single "Knights Of The Black Sun" which most of us have heard before now, the Pink Floyd-esque journey.
Was it worth the hype? Well, like punk should really be it's open to interpretation and how you see it. As an older guy now I appreciate all of it and see it as Amebix should sound in 2011, possibly how they would sound if they had never broken up and just carried on. I feel like my tastes since I first heard them back in the 80s have evolved and Amebix have kindly evolved beside me. It is a journey, it is an experience, it is dark and it is mythical, yet it's also heavy and destructive and blasts through you - it's an Amebix album with guts and production just as I'm sure they always would have made, if they went back and re-recorded their older albums at the same studio with their age and experience now it would sound like Sonic Mass, in fact if we listen to last year's Redux 12" (a re-recording of older Amebix tracks) then you're not far off.
So - SONIC MASS, one of the best albums this decade. REJOYCE, THE GREAT GOD CRUST ISN'T DEAD!
Amebix, aka Rob and Stig Miller plus new boy all-star drummer Roy Mayorga (Soulfly, Shelter, Nausea, Sepultura, Stone Sour and more) reformed a few years back and were off playing again, wowing audiences young and old.
Ss_beautiful S h a n n o n 
