Time Signature Metal in metal out...

Genre: groove metal

While I love groove metal - especially, groove thrash metal, my general impression is that, apart from Pantera, Invocator, Adrenaline Mob and a couple of other acts, a lot of groove metal acts are terribly unoriginal and often, to varying extents, sound like Pantera rip-offs.

Fortunately, while the Pantera influence is quite obvious (especially in the vocals which sound like something in between Phil Anselmo and are more Russell Allen or Apollo Papathanasio (mostly on the Anselmo side, though), while not quite in the same league as the above-mentioned artists, Huron have their own sound and do not come across as mere Pantera rip-offs.

The album starts out with a slow and heavy doom section, and, for a moment, I thought I was in for a slab of doom metal; however, the track soon morphed into an uptempo thrash metal track with lots of southern groove and street attitude, and this pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the album. What I particularly like about this release is that Huron combine the groove of southern metal with more traditional uptempo trash metal, and there are also elements which are reminiscent of death metal every now and then. It is this blend of impressions that makes Huron stand out to me as being a quite original groove metal act at the end of the day.

While I think that this is a fine album overall, I do have some reservations. One is that I think that the vocals could be a little less Anselmo and a little more Palmer. Also, the drums sound very hollow and mechanical at times - this has nothing with the drumming itself to do, I think, but is a matter of production. When it all comes down, I think that the problem is a matter of the drums being to pristine and clean-sounding in comparison with the sound of the other instrumentation, which actually has some raw and dirty qualities to it.

Overall, "Mary Celeste" is, not a flawless, but a quite solid groove metal release which reminds us that groove metal can be original, and that you can draw on thrash metal and southern metal without having to sound like a Pantera clone. If you like your metal thrashy and groovy, give this album a listen.