This is the fourth album from Indian one-man extreme metal band Demonstealer.
I enjoyed both 2016’s This Burden Is Mine and 2021’s The Holocene Termination, so it’s now time to catch up with the talented artist behind Demonstealer. This time he’s come with a large supporting cast, as he’s assembled an enviable amount of musicians to help him to achieve his metallic goals, (from current/ex-members of bands such as Abiotic, Aborted, Alkaloid, Blood Red Throne, Cognizance, Cradle of Filth, Equipoise, First Fragment, Hiss from the Moat, Howling Sycamore, Kataklysm, Ne Obliviscaris, Obsidious, Primalfrost, Scale the Summit, Triptykon, and Wormhole). As you can probably tell, a wealth of skill and talent has gone into the making of this album.
The Propaganda Machine‘s extreme metal can be characterised as melodic death metal with elements of both thrash and black metal. The album boasts a strong production and the songs hit hard. The balance of melody and brutality is well-judged, making for songs that rip your face off, but display depth and colour while they do so.
The songwriting focuses on hooks and memorability, and the album is packed with riffs and blast beats. The guitars shred and burn everything around them, yet still find the time to build mood and create atmosphere when they need to. These latter aspects of the Demonstealer sound are further enriched by the occasional use of keyboards, clean singing, and other creative additions to the core sound of heaviness and deep growls. It works, and it works well. This is an enjoyable collection of tracks that are easy to get on board with.
The vocals are the most well-developed to grace any Demonstealer release. The growls are gruff, but legible and expressive, and the less-heard screams are serrated and abrasive in the best of ways. I especially like the clean vocals though – they’re used just enough to provide some key hooks in the songs, and have an understated power that is very moreish indeed.
With The Propaganda Machine the artist behind Demonstealer has produced his best work to date. Packed with meaty content and beefy hooks, this is an easy recommendation for anyone into heavy extremity with melodic might.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 