01. No Tolerance for Imperfection 
02. Gainsayer 
03. Kill It Skin It Wear It 
04. It Comes In Threes 
05. This Day is black 
06. Hide the Knives 
07. Dead in the Water 
08. What I can't take back 
09. Reflections from within 
10. How the Mighty have fallen 
11. Survival of the Sickest 

Joe McGlynn - Vocals 
Alan McFarland - Guitars
Danny McNab - Bass
Matt Holland - Drums

      
Recorded at Grindstone Studios in the UK with producer Scott Atkins.

promoted in Switzerland by

preview  by dalia "gryphon_spirit" di giacomo ___       

What i can't take back is "noir".

"These songs are a new distilled version of Man Must Die, straight to the point lyrically and musically, super tight guitars, insane drumming, and vocals to tear your face off! This is the next step up for Man Must Die!" so says Danny McNab perfectly describing the characteristic of the new album."..."No Tolerance For Imperfection" was recorded with painful precision and effort, we all sweated blood for this CD and cant wait to get this beast out..." and i think it's very true. "No Tolerance For Imperfection" gets a title that is a program, cause it is razor-like precise, but not for that there is a lack of underground spontaneous creativity. However it gets a mature aspect, thanks to the presence of dark "ingredients".

Indeed, this beast, follow-up to ‘07’s The Human Condition, is actually a great merciless work. A blast of brutal Death Metal with both ferocious and  technical sides, but also a messenger of  moments of melodic and obscure structures like in the slower, hypnotic instrumental What I Can't Take Back, dark, darker, in one word "noir". A bit more of 3 minutes of excellent performance, surely one of the best tracks here.  

A melodic although devastating touch reigns also  in Gaynsayer. Gaynsayer is a masterpiece, surely one of the best metal extreme songs of the year. In this song the similarity with Kataklysm (especially in the growling vocals), lurking throughout the album,  reaches its peak ( as in Reflections from within too),  nonetheless, the guitar riffing and in particular the lead sound is different. I mean, Man Must Die are able to show a personal imprinting which blossoms in an original restless conception of the tremolo guitar-technique and bass integration and cohesion, while drums, by new-in-the-lineup Matt Holland, are fast and blasting but again no  copy-cut of  the Canadian hyperblasters . Survival of the Sickest, the short song that closes the album, is another super and particular work that unites  force and darkness.  With a big atmospheric touch, opened by a dark impressive carpet, this track develops a touching melody "told" by abyssal vocals, commanding background and by a protagonist dark guitar that will literally meet a very rainy end. 

As often happens for extreme bands,  the opener (and title track) is a discharge of violent, cynic fists on your teeth oriented to show how wild, complex, but also critical the band can be. And, needless to say, it is the track which i don't like, because it doesn't represent the ferine beauty of the rest of the album but only the hardly tamed rage of the reactive side of the combo. Lyrically interesting but not ..."beautiful".

Those who want it fast, killing, a*s ripping yet..."beautiful" can have a bath of banging lust with the excellent Kill it Skin it Wear it, a blasting explosion embellished by a breakdown intermezzo with adamantine drops of transfused melodic harmonic chords. Or with the violent spiky Dead in the Water. Reflections from within is another beautiful track possessed by a strong melodic stream too, with bridges inserting nice acoustic- like guitars and dark lead solos, only pity that the analogy with Kataklysm  in the composition can superficially appear really strong, this time. How the Mighty have fallen also belongs to the brutal-supreme category but this track, on the contrary, finds a different development if compared with the previously mentioned ones, attractive for Suffocation or Cryptopsy fans. Right is the use of the word "development", because the most songs seem to jump from the same initial first chords, like from a similar cocoon, but immediately each song gets its unmistakable face, so that  Man Must Die can be identified as  great  actors, and warriors,  of this genre.

rating: 9/10

news - Man Must Die very recently added a second guitar player to its ranks — Renne Hauffe from German grinders Japanische Kampfhörspiele.

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