Massacre is an American death metal band formed in 1984. Famous for being the starting point of numerous prolific musicians in the Florida scene, they have garnered a reputation as a favorite from their area over the decades despite their limited discography and are also infamous for their extremely rocky and controversial history.
Beginning life as a power/speed metal band, they changed into a death metal act by the time a stable lineup was established in 1986, which included the likes of Terry Butler, Allen West, and founding Death members Rick Rozz and Kam Lee, the latter of whom becoming most famous as the face and voice of the group. After recording numerous demos throughout the late 1980s, the band began to experience a high turnover rate due to constant turmoil amongst the members, resulting in their first of many, many breakups in 1987. Two years later, Kam, Rick, and Terry reformed the band with the addition of fellow Death alumni Bill Andrews on drums, and after nearly a decade of on and off writing, the band's debut album From Beyond was finally released in 1991.
Needless to say, the wait and work paid off. The album was met with extremely strong feedback, receiving praise for its memorable songwriting and Lee's vocal performance among several other aspects. Released the same year as Human, many regarded it as a glimpse into what Death may have sounded like instead had they continued in their original musical direction. Today, the record is regarded by many as a classic in the genre and one of the definitive death metal releases of the early 1990s. The following year, the band released the Inhuman Condition EP, which garnered similar praise and included a cover of "Warhead" featuring the ultimate seal of approval - lead vocals from Cronos himself.
Naturally, there were a fair amount of eyes peeled for their next full-length. After a year-long hiatus, the group began brainstorming for their sophomore effort, but this time around, things proved to be tumultuous behind the scenes. Before it was even released, Kam abruptly quit the band during post-production due to extreme dissatisfaction with both the album and his performance, which ended up delaying the project. Despite having lost their frontman and creative force, the band still decided to finish what they started and the resulting record, Promise, was finally released in 1996, two years after it was originally recorded. Turns out, Kam's reasoning for leaving would prove understandable - the result was, to say the absolute least, a complete and utter disaster.
To say that the album was received negatively would be a massive understatement. Promise was virtually universally savaged by even the most forgiving and open-minded critics and fans - it was a complete Genre Shift to groove metal, which wouldn't have been an issue in concept, but it was executed in what most would agree was the worst way imaginable, receiving relentless criticism for, among many other things, its trite amateur songwriting, lack of hooks, poor production, vapid lyrics, and phoned-in performances.
The album basically killed the band's career overnight, causing them to break up almost immediately after its release (before Kam's replacement could record anything), and to this day is unanimously considered to be one of the worst metal albums in history, with very few people arguing otherwise. While most of the former members remained active in other projects, Kam took a hiatus from music for over a decade. In 2006, the band reunited for a series of shows, which inspired Kam to return to the scene. A year later, he would distance himself from the group and begin carrying on the band's legacy by performing in numerous underground projects throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. As for the band themselves, they would soon attempt a comeback of their own.
In 2011, they reunited with Rick Rozz and Terry Butler returning on guitar and bass respectively, new drummer Mike Mazzonetto, and singer Edwin Webb of Diabolic fame. This lineup would go on to record the band's third studio album Back from Beyond, which, as evidenced from the title, was intended to reestablish the band and dropped in the spring of 2014. However, it failed to put them back on the map.
Despite virtually everyone agreeing it was a massive improvement over Promise (which goes without saying was an incredibly low bar to surpass), the album received middling reception. While very few people thought it was outright bad, it was widely considered to be forgettable and nowhere near as good as From Beyond. As a result, the album failed to leave an impression and the band once again, you guessed it, broke up shortly after its release when Terry and Edwin left.
In 2017, Kam Lee himself began work on resurrecting the band, but this would prove to be a daunting task. The band's original drummer Bill Andrews got into disputes over the rights to the band's name over the course of two years before they were finally able to use their original moniker in 2019. Kam and the band's original bassist Michael Borders (who initially left before their first album) recruited guitarist Taylor Nordberg and drummer Jeramie Kling, both of The Absence, but they quickly departed from the group after less than a year due to discomfort with Kam's alleged poor communication and tendency to want to do things his way or not at all, a relationship they described as unprofessional and akin to a dictatorship.
The remainder of the band never directly gave their perspective on the situation, but it's likely that what went down was simply creative differences which weren't addressed properly, as the band's new lineup was announced barely over a week later which hinted that they knew who to call for backup. The remaining two members were joined by guitarists Rogga Johansson, Jonny Pettersson, and Scott Fairfax (Memoriam), as well as drummer Brynjar Helgetun in 2020, all of whom sans Fairfax were involved in other projects with Kam in the past. That same year, Taylor Nordberg and Jeramie Kling would form Inhuman Condition with Terry Butler to showcase the material they had written for the group, effectively creating a second incarnation of the group's modern form.
Their fourth studio album Resurgence was released in October 2021 and received fairly positive reviews, with many citing it as a promising new beginning for the band, finally escaping the shadow of their past failures. Since then, they've continued to release new material in the form of singles and extended plays, and for once don't seem like they're going away anytime soon. After decades of ups and downs, breakups and reunions, and controversy surrounding them, it seems that Massacre has for now finally found their footing, even if it took them over three decades to do so.
See also Death. Not to be confused with the experimental rock trio from New York, whose members included Fred Frith, Bill Laswell and Charles Hayward.
Select Studio Discography:
- From Beyond (1991)
- Inhuman Condition (1992) - EP
- Promise (1996)
- Back from Beyond (2014)
- Resurgence (2021)
- Mythos (2022) - EP
- Casket Mutilations (2022) - EP
- Headless Halloween (2022) - EP
Massacre and its members provide examples of the following tropes:
- The Band Minus the Face: Promise (at least partially) features Kam's voice, but as he left before post-production, does not appear in promotional photography for the album,note while Back from Beyond does not feature him at all.
- Disco Dan: Kam seldom keeps up with the modern death metal scene and is mostly in tune with the older style and acts, especially when he first re-emerged. He even stated in a 2009 interview that he found it hard to recognize the sound of newer acts as death metal because he was so used to the genre's original foundations. Considering that he's widely seen as one of the first, if not the first, true death metal vocalists, though, this is actually fairly unsurprising.
- Eldritch Abomination: A frequent topic of theirs, as they are strongly influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
- Embarrassing First Name: Kam's real first name is Barney (ironic given that it's the nickname of the most popular vocalist to mold their style after him), with Kam being a shortened version of his middle name Kamalani. However, he has stated that he is not ashamed of his given name and merely prefers not to go by it.
- New Sound Album: After Promise switched their sound to groove metal, Back from Beyond was a return to their original sound. Resurgence, meanwhile, bares only a passing resemblance to their earlier style and essentially sounds like a cross between Kam's other projects with the Massacre name attached to it.
- Special Guest: Quite a few, with notable ones being Cronos, Marc Grewe (Morgoth), Dave Ingram (Benediction), Matt Harvey, Dave Rotten (Avulsed), and Anders Odden (Cadaver, Satyricon).
- Token Minority: Along with Matt Heafy, Dave Suzuki (Vital Remains), Tim Yeung, and Jon Chang (Discordance Axis), Kam Lee is one of the most famous Asian musicians in the Western extreme metal scene.
- Verbal Tic: Kam paid homage to Tom G. Warrior on their debut by mimicking his line "HEY! I SAID...HEY!" from "The Usurper" and putting his own spin on it. Since then, it's become a signature tick that's become synonymous with him and the band, with other singers following suit, most famously Dave Ingram of Benediction, who alongside Kam himself is responsible for making the phrase recognizable.
