ALBUM REVIEW: Victim 1 – A Killer’s Confession
You know where you are with a song that starts, “I mean no disrespect, but deep down I just want to snap your fucking neck”. If this kind of violent energy sounds like your idea of a good time, A KILLER’S CONFESSION have got plenty more where that came from. This post-MUSHROOMHEAD project by Waylon Reavis draws inspiration from its moniker for fourth album Victim 1, imagining the world through the eyes of a man addressing his sins. Cue murderous imagery and tortured soul-searching, but Reavis hopes, with a surprising sweetness, that listeners ‘find some solace in the record’ and that ‘we don’t have to be so divided, we’re more alike than we think we are’.
All this rage and finger-pointing, then, is in service of expunging the primal instincts that drive wedges between us. It is an album goading you to let it all out, even if it’s painful, because on the other side is something much better than this. Like nu-metal from the turn of the century, these ten tracks are speaking to a disaffected generation that could do with lowering the volume in how we talk to each other. Turn Victim 1 up to 10 instead.
Like a horror movie from the same era, this is direct, knuckle-brained alt-metal, nothing elevated about it. Opener Tongue thrashes like an unchained beast with shades of early SLIPKNOT, its hooks snarled and spat over an adrenaline-injected stomp, stomp, stomp. “Rip the tongue right from your mouth / Erase the hate without a sound,” backs up Reavis’ claim the language of brutality acts as a cleanser, assertively ridding your world of negative forces. The record’s occasional serial killer vibes are not ICE NINE KILLS’ pastiche, nor are they icky like SKYND, but an escapist fantasy in which the band’s audience can indulge their undesirable urges in that most healthy way: through some bloody heavy music.
It won’t blaze any trails, but it doesn’t have to. Fans of KORN, MUDVAYNE, and DROWNING POOL will greet these destructive grooves like old friends as the band persevere with a sound many think has been left behind. Tracks like Kill Or Be Killed would play comfortably on PlayStation 2 extreme sports games, all throaty and electronic, perfect for high-flying stunts and wiping out. Martyr is a rare misstep, on which loudness replaces attitude. It’s a fine piece of radio rock with a chorus to match, but it is a bit blunt when most cuts here have sharp edges. Accidentally, it elevates its surroundings, drawing attention to just how impassioned and honest the rest of the record is.
Knowing he’s on to a winner, Reavis considers Victim 1 ‘the first true A KILLER’S CONFESSION album’. You can hear it too: in its confidence is the sense of an identity forming, and by trimming off all the excess fat – only one track runs over four minutes – Reavis never gets lost scrambling for an idea. It’s a brief, tight listen with few surprises, but no one is throwing this on for avant-garde experimentalism. Music to lose your mind to.
Rating: 7/10
Victim 1 is set for release on September 13th via MNRK Heavy.
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