Martyr
Warp Zone

The Martyr, a Canadian band active since 1994, are in my view one of the most refined and avant-garde metal realities: although they gain very little success, one cannot deny the contribution they make to the entire extreme scene.

Anyone discovering a new band in extreme metal and praising its innovation should first listen to any Martyr album. The band can be said to synthesize elements of the most disparate extreme genres, however favoring Death metal and Mathcore; some will hear more Dillinger Escape Plan-like sounds, some more Gorguts, others Meshuggah, Cynic, or the second period of Death.

In any case, what most characterizes this band is nothing else but the common denominator of the aforementioned bands, namely the excellent technique, contaminations, an intelligent and thoughtful musical approach. The album in question (dated 2000) follows a debut demo and the official debut "Hopeless Hopes" and precedes their last release, the excellent live "Extracting The Core". Variety is perhaps the ingredient most noticed, and to have the proof, it would be enough to have sufficient goodwill to count the tempo changes in a single song: the songs, in fact, have their foundations in the purest irregularity, in the unrepeatability of passages, in the alternation of styles. The singer/guitarist offers an excellent performance: a fairly clean vocal (a bit more violent than a Thrash vocal) and not very captivating, is admirably compensated by enviable skill in playing the six-string. Scales and solos performed at hyperbolic speeds and a certain taste for virtuosity in general (including acoustic digressions) are not enough to provide a complete picture of this guy’s talent; it is not an exaggeration to say that he is a musical genius, able to handle and control Jazz, Fusion, and Death metal and bend them to his pronounced compositional qualities.

The songwriting is indeed almost obsessive, marked by careful attention to detail and every single riff, passage, chord. Even the second guitarist plays a key role within the work and, like the first one, stands out for his high technique. Nothing is left to chance or instinct, even at the risk of making the whole a tad cold. The drummer is surely among the greats of the genre (Flo Mounier of Cryptopsy, to name one) and performs in virtually constant countertimes and equally frequent odd times: the factor that differentiates him from others is perhaps the fact that he indulges less in frenetic accelerations and focuses more on the perfection of individual passages, something truly astounding even if very difficult to assimilate and recognize.
By this, I do not mean to say that the CD revolves around medium-low speeds; on the contrary, the standards are quite high, but they do not reach the peaks touched by other bands in the field. The bassist, the singer's brother and second voice (a rather low growling but appearing rarely) is slightly overshadowed by the other instruments but will not escape a keen ear: his instrument, used wisely and not invasively, turns out to be what is commonly defined as the "icing on the cake," the perfect seal to this type of proposal. He also demonstrates a great knowledge of jazz techniques which emerge especially in moments when only the sound of his instrument is heard.

The production is good but not impeccable: although every sound is well-defined, a bit more depth to draw thicker and more decisive lines would not have been out of place. If one really wants to find a flaw with this album, it could be noted that the mood is quite poor, nor is it very difficult to grasp it: the music requires attention to detail that makes the work lose all spontaneity, making it quite sterile, except for a few exceptions. However, I believe that in the face of a work of art like this, one can also turn a blind eye and focus (for once) more on the music than on the emotions.
“Warp Zone” remains a perfect album on the technical level and wonderful on the compositional level. Although the analogies with Death are many (the clean growling and riffing), it is wrong to state that Martyr are their direct heirs: in fact, the interpolations become more sensitive and the properly Death metal parts are heavier (therefore it is difficult to dismiss them with just one genre of belonging).

A drumming that awakens the senses, a guitar capable of constructing and destroying, and songs comparable in complexity to a cathedral, consecrate “Warp Zone” as one of the best releases ever: it is certainly a niche product (this CD, like all their discography, is self-produced) dedicated to those with particular tastes, but even if you prefer more violent works, a listen is a must.