FATES MESSENGER – Scars

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://fatesmessenger.com/

In the reviewer’s, indeed, a metalhead’s experience, one of the best moments is when you hear that one guitar sound that just takes you emotionally to the next level, one where you go “Holy cow, who are these guys?!” and your metal is never the same. For me, there have been several: Machine Head’s “Davidian”, Sepultura’s “Arise”, Death’s “The Philosopher” or Trivium’s “Pull Harder At The Strings Of Your Martyr”, to name but a few, but there’s one that was absolutely seismic to me, the first time I saw (as a 17 year old on my first year as a metalhead) a commercial (!) advertising Pantera’s by now ridiculously seminal Vulgar Display Of Power¹⁹⁹² by virtue of that 30 second soundbite of a chorus “You keep this love, thing, love, child, love, toy, you keep this love, fist, love, scar, love, break, you keep this love, love, love, you keep this love, love, love, you keep this looove!” Oh, the early 90s…

Since that day, I don’t remember another time I heard something that would create that same feeling in me (although Hatebreed’s debut Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire¹⁹⁹⁷ and Diecast’s Reckoning Day²⁰⁰¹ came very close) until the first time I heard the UK metalcore thrash metal (or more accurately, thrashcore) quartet Fates Messenger’s debut single “Scars” followed by “Bonechapel” which only served to reinforce the impression that it was not a fluke. Ladies and gentlemen, we may not have another Pantera on our hands per excellence (for example, there are no solos) but we sure have one in terms of the same vulgar display of power and the additional four tracks (World Collapse, Carved In Stone,Serpents Coil, They Walk Among Us) they have recorded and put on their bandcamp page (in preparation of their debut EP Eternal War²⁰²⁵ out on their own Greyline Records soon) since I had been handed down the “Scars” single for review assure me that these guys can write riffs and melodies like Diamond Darrel and I am not even remotely close to yanking you.

Since the musicians comprising Fates Messenger have had extensive musician experience, Tony Maddocks former vocalist of Essex hardcore legends Above All, guitarist Ron D (Dishonor The Crown, Romeo Must Die), drummer Will Romain (Romeo Must Die) and bassist Paul Fletcher (Stamping Ground, Romeo Must Die), it should surprise me not in the least that they are this good, this ferocious, this hungry, this brutal while simultaneously this earwormy melodic, but oh, it does because I am absolutely in love with Fates Messenger.

Sure, the score is not perfect because Fates Messenger is not perfect. Yet. Some of the transitions from brutal to melodic are a little awkward or, better said, rough around the edges, and the guys should start praying for Colin Marston or Zeuss or Colin Richardson or even the old Rick Rubin or (dare we dream?) Terry Date to give them an inviting call, the production quite muddy (especially whenever at fast pace), which the producing legends absolutely should because these four guys are that good. Under the universal fairness doctrine, with the right all around care, these guys should be as huge as Pantera, Lamb Of God, Hatebreed, Biohazard or Machine Head used to be, and I even shall drink a Polish “Żywiec” beer momentarily in toast of that happening fairly soon because they utterly deserve it, mark my words.