adg211288 Back With a Vengeance (2013) is the debut full-length album by German speed metal act Masters of Disguise. This album was proceeded by the EP Knutson's Return (2013), which I received very well. Both the original tracks from the EP are also featured on Back With a Vengeance. As I stated in my previous review for said EP, Masters of Disguise's instrumentalists stood in as live members for US act Savage Grace a couple of years back, and the group is named after the debut album of Savage Grace. There's some obvious worship going on here, in other words, even to those of us who, like me, have never actually heard Savage Grace, who released their two full-lengths before my time, in the mid-80s, and have only actually come to my attention because of Masters of Disguise.

The music on Back With a Vengeance is fun and energetic speed metal that, as can be expected given what Masters of Disguise appear to be about, sounds straight out of the 80s. This is perhaps the only convincing way to pull the speed metal genre off these days, given that the 80s was also the time that speed metal began to diverge into what are today at least the more known genres of thrash metal and power metal. From my experience of older speed metal it's my experience that Masters of Disguise take more cues towards the speed metal bands that ended up as power metal bands. I'm thinking Walls of Jericho era Helloween and Battalions of Fear era Blind Guardian. Indeed although it is very much a minority element there are some traces of actual power metal here although when the music does move away from speed metal, it'll be traditional heavy metal elements you'll hear the most.

Back With a Vengeance is packed full of excellent tracks, not least The Omen and For Now And All Time (Knutson's Return), the latter of which was also on the EP. The term 'bad track' is not in the vocabulary of Masters of Disguise as the band hurtle away at their speed metal topped off by the excellent vocals of Alexx Stahl. It, simply put, kicks arse in the way that only an intentionally old school album can. If anything, even though the EP was solid, it didn't really even begin to hint at how powerful this full-length was going to end up being. In my experience you don't hear a lot of speed metal these days, again most likely because of its evolution into thrash and power metal, but bands like Masters of Disguise show that there's life in this genre and always will be. A 4.5 star range rating is easily appropriate.

89/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/masters-of-disguise-back-with-a-vengeance-t3279.html)