Formed in 2006 from South Wales, Australia, Thy Art Is Murder is an extreme metal band that is known for incorporating deathcore and death metal compositions while borrowing influences from Decapitated and Behemoth. Prior to 2017’s Dear Desolation, Thy Art Is Murder are to me in my humblest opinion, not only one of the biggest names in deathcore, but they have been far consistent as other bands within the genre such as Carnifex, Within Destruction, Rings Of Saturn, Oceano, Aversions Crown and many others. Musically, Human Target continues right after Dear Desolation came off and introduces some changes within the drumming department. This is the first release to not feature longtime drummer Lee Stanton who left the band around this year but instead, they’ve picked up Jesse Beahler who may best known his time and work with the progressive death metal band Black Crown Initiate and also did sections with Wisconsin’s Jungle Rot.
With Human Target, it takes everything from Dear Desolation, Holy War and Hate with some twists and turns making this release a lot more dynamic, heavier, polished and aggressive all the same time. With tracks such as New Gods, Eye For An Eye, Eternal Suffering, Chemical Christ and perhaps one of the highlighted tracks off on the album being Make America Hate Again, you’ll get black metal structures with a twist of technical death metal and a modernized style of anti-religious, misanthropic, murderous and violent deathcore arrangements while incorporating darker, ministering and atmospheric passages to utilize the band’s unrelenting tracks within the thirteen years as a band showcases maturity and regenerated progressions finding it effective within the variations upon the album’s lyricism.
Guitars provide a riffage range from mid-paced to slowed tempo rhythms while the bass and drums work uses a diabolical touch alongside the vocals performed by CJ McMahon uses his melodic, beautiful sounding presentation touches and the barbaric segments are quite enjoyable for the most part. What made Human Target became a more traditional record from Thy Art Is Murder is it feels and represents a death metal atmosphere while managing powerful messages to know Thy Art Is Murder are back with the darkest, deepest, emotional and characterized albums in their catalog to date.
It may be overly repetitive in specific degrees but this album takes a lot of patience getting into the musicality aspects. Fans of past releases make enjoy this album apart from differential branches the album portrays but apart of hearing the album I was pleasantly surprised Thy Art Is Murder are taking their sound into a modernized death metal approach with Behemoth and Decapitated-esque instrumentals is surely worth the attention.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
