Review: “Feed Me Violence” by Must Not Kill

Built from the ground up & spawned from the pits of Tampa’s long time death metal scene, Must…Not…Kill features Brad Mader of All Out War on guitars and Tom Shelton on vocals, Aaron Hollingsworth on bass, Dan Carden on guitar and Brian Jenson on drums. The quintet have followed up their 2015 debut album “Unleash Hell” with a 6 track EP that includes a pair of singles released a year ago. Must…Not…Kill employ the elements of Metal, Hardcore, Death Metal, Thrash, and Grind to look to achieve a devastating result…

…the new EP is just 4 minutes and two tracks shorter than the previous album so that should give you an idea about the speed and song length were looking at with Must Not Kill and their sound. “Feed Me Violence” gets underway with a Hardcore riff and a bloodcurdling roar, the bass heavy sound employing a few choice drops before going all out hardcore punk. The sound quality is raw, sounding like a one take recording in a live room in places, especially with the drums and dirty guitars, which adds to the charm. “Kingdom” keeps up the intensity with some relentless riffage, a call for humanity to embrace the bitter end with some Black Metal influences in a left field post gang chant blast beat section. Eerie atmospherics are created with some off kilter lead flourishes before a whammy bar solo and jazz indulgent bass heavy breakdown. There are a lot of style shifts within the sound and while on paper some of them might sound like a train wreck, in audio, Must Not Kill keep their hands firmly on the wheel so those moments become little bursts of energy. “H813” or “Hate 1-3” as the gang chat says has that same Jazzy rhythmic gymnastic breakdown but keeps the core sound strictly Metallic Hardcore save for a Thrash solo that melts the face off. The riffs are all good fun with short pauses and time signature changes to keep you on your toes.

From the very start “Enemy” has a much cleaner sound than the opening trio of cuts with the guitar work getting more prominence and the drum sound being bigger in the mix. A groove riff laiden track with some huge crash cymbal hits and pulverising bass, it’s a winner from get go. It could be retitled “Connections”, a phrase used more often than any other in the venoms lyrics. A obvious choice for a music video and easily a live favourite, it’s a stand out cut. “Plague in the Water” is the first of the two songs from October 2018 on the EP, however it doesn’t sound out of place as it has a very similar guitar tone and drum sound in the mix, keeping that raw live feel with adrenaline fueled energy and stylish leads. The gradual slow down that brings the track to an end is masterful and allows for the punch back of the pedal to the metal start of “Already Dead”. The second 2018 track has that old school Thrash heart with gang chants of the title bolstering Tom Shelton’s brutal unclean vocals. Those vocals are arguably the heaviest part of the bands sound, giving the guitars crunch a run for its money [7/10]

Track list

1. Feed Me Violence
2. Kingdom
3. H813
4. Enemy
5. Plague in the Water
6. Already Dead

“Feed Me Violence” by Must Not Kill is out now and available in physical copy here