In an area and time dominated (and honestly over-saturated) by hardcore and overly-technical forms of metal, Messiam are bringing the Nu-Metal back.

Keeping in mind it is a demo being offered by the once five-piece, currently four-piece, then five-piece, and possibly soon six-piece band, they’ve still managed to get a solid slab of sound happening from this recording.

The drums are hard-hitting and fat, with plenty of double-kick pounding and tom/cymbal slathering from skin-man Jared, very much helping to steer the Messiam ship through the turbulent waters of each song.

You can pick apart and list the amount of influences pushing through from this band - Slipknot, Killswitch Engage, a number of Pattonesque projects, but one band really comes to mind with their sound, and that would be One Minute Silence (Irish Nu-Metal/Rapcore band... look them up on iTunes or Youtube).

The boys offer quite a bit of bounce in their sound, setting them apart from their hardcore alternatives, which is refreshing, and given that I have a soft spot for this genre of metal, it made it a welcome change to review this CD.

Messiam once actually had one of The Point’s favourite artists on board, with Mr Rob Stanley being a part of this band at one stage, and it would definitely have been interesting to see how that would have turned out.

Regardless, having kept an eye on the progress of this band, and having inside information on their future direction, this demo does offer a good insight into their sound, with tracks like ‘Killing Breed’ and the choppy third track coming at you thick and fast.

However, I will be critical of a few things (but in a positive way). Big man and vocalist, Brad’s style does have plenty of Pattonesque qualities as well as some nods to Corey Taylor as well, but personally, I would love to see him use the higher-toned and faster rap approach, and only sparingly using the lower-end death growls, so commonly associated with the more metalcore/hardcore genres.

Also, I love the guitar sound, with the Slipknotish squeals, but they do need to come up in the mix more, and have a bit more balls.

And being the avid bass-lover I am, would love to hear some more twang and bounce in the bass sound, as it is really just sitting there in the mix. To truly breakaway from the other sounds lumped in the metal genre, a bit more fat twangy bass would definitely help that.

While the demo is a good indication of what Messiam had been doing in the last 12 months, we here at The Point are definitely keen to see the future direction of the band, and the slight change in sound to really push the envelope just that little bit further.

Rooster.