Mahatma - Perseverance

Very few Korean artists get much more than underground recognition out of Asia and even fewer artists manage to secure a record deal outside the area. Thrash metal band Mahatma are one of these few bands. After securing deals with Dope Entertainment in Korea and SOUNDHOLIC Records in Japan, they were signed to Listenable Records in France, home to predominant European metal acts such as Aborted and Soilwork. Their first European album was Perseverance, which was also released in Japan and, of course, Korea.

The album opens with an eerie track called There is No Hope Without Suffering, which is a mantra read over slow, industrial sounds. This is followed by the full-on thrash metal track Beginning of the End. The song showcases some impressive guitar harmonies and the sort of extreme vocals you'd expect to hear from the likes of Slayer or one of the other Bay Area thrash metal bands.

The next song, Unseen Enemy, continues in the same vein as the previous track. The highlight of the song is without a doubt the solo around the midpoint, which definitely proves the band's competence with their instruments. Despite some good moments, the song doesn't really offer much that wasn't featured in Beginning of the End.

The following song, Having Hope, offers a very memorable riff and gives the listener a better insight into the band's musical skill. The song isn't as vocally heavy as the previous tracks, which doesn't work against it. The music stands on its own and vocals purely add some complexity to the track rather than making up the bulk. This is followed by Violence, another thrash metal track in the same style as the opener of the album. While the song itself is enjoyable, it fails to offer anything new or inspiring. As with some of the previous tracks, the most enjoyable and noticeable thing about it is the guitar work.

The album's midpoint is signalled by Falling From Hell. Opening with some ethereal female vocals, the song then thunders back into their thrash metal style. A fairly dynamic track, halfway through it completely changes pace to produce a more doom metal feel. This combined with the thrash vocals is a nice touch to the album and makes it one of the more progressive songs on the release.

Reform sounds a lot more like a Slayer song than the others on the album. Slower and progressing more steadily, it builds to an almost punk climax near the end. The album gets a more up-tempo song with the inclusion of Stormrunner. While this may not be the most suitable word to describe metal music, this song is the bounciest on the album. It's easy to imagine that it would be a firm live favourite.

The next song is Painkiller, and if the title sounds familiar to you it could be because this is a cover of the 1990 Judas Priest song of the same name. While the original was a heavy metal song, Mahatma's thrash metal reworking works surprisingly well. The cover may not retain much of the pomp of the original and sounds, well, more serious, but it's still very recognisable and easy to listen to.

The album comes to a close with its longest track, Despair Overcome. The song starts off very slowly and is almost ballad-like in sound. It also has the first inclusion of clean vocals. The combination of the two makes it sound more like a battle song than anything else. By the middle of the track the tempo has picked up and the screams are back! It's quite sad that this song was left until the end as it is easily the best one on the album due to its dynamic and technical changes throughout.

A thrash metal album was never going to be accessible to everyone and this is no exception. The heavy riffs and growling vocals aren't likely to satisfy everyone's tastes but this album could fail to impress even the die-hard metal fans. It has a few songs that really show the potential of the band (particularly towards the end of the album) and it's evident from every song that the band has the talent and passion to produce something exceptional. Sadly, this album wasn't it.