MONUMENT OF MISANTHROPY “Unterweger”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Considering myself somewhat of an authority on serial killers, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know much about Europe’s notorious Jack Unterweger. Wow, what a demented story there is behind this cat! A good looking and educated guy, somewhat like Ted Bundy, he ran around strangling naughty girls with their bras until he got caught and sentenced. Then a whole army of celebrity bleeding hearts pleaded his case and he was released. He immediately became a celebrity himself, appearing on TV, writing books and delivering lectures on the prison system. Meanwhile, of course, he was killing girls left and right again until Interpol finally tracked him down in Miami and arrested him. He hung himself his first night in prison.
MONUMENT OF MISANTHROPY is a new brutal death metal band that tackles Jack’s story on “Unterweger”. It’s a concept album like MACABRE’s “Dahmer”. Brutal slam death is a genre that can either wreck your neck or bore you with repetition. I have to say, for a new band, M.O.M. delivers the goods for the most part. The record is well produced, almost cinematic in spots, and features enough variety in the songwriting that you generally avoid boredom. Guest vocalists from ABORTED and BENIGHTED drop by to growl and scream and in fact, M.O.M. strongly resembles both of those bands.
After an intro with monotone narration, the album’s first few songs deliver blazing, slamming death metal in brutal fashion. When we reach the song “A Man With A Special Qualification”, the band starts to inject catchy thrash-influenced riffing into their mix, with good results. “Demon of Graz” is slower and more pounding...an excellent skull-crusher that ends with real cool hooks! The same can be said of “Midnight”...there are passages of melody and doomy, chunky riffs, but you are never far from an eruption of violent slamming with these guys.
Like most brutal death albums, it’s kind of an exhausting ride in total, but “Unterweger” is a really strong debut in this style of music. MONUMENT OF MISANTHROPY shows signs of being a force in this subgenre.