'VIOLENT NEW BREED' (Raw Magazine #133, Sept 29 - Oct 12 1993) 

Industrial mayhem! That's what this is. Forget Glam, forget Cock Rock...Shotgun Messiah have torched their old wardrobe and booted all their former styles into oblivion with this sonic nailbomb of a third album.

Megadeth meets The Sisters Of Mercy. Trent Reznor mixes Mötley Crüe. Shotgun Messiah are not so much reborn as totally transmogrified - and the new breed is one violent sonofabitch. The cynics can say they're bandwagon jumping till they're blue in their face, but Shotgun Messiah can merely look back and laugh as they cough in their dust.

The band is now a duo of Tim Skold (bass/growled-through-a-waste-disposal-unit vocals) and Harry Cody (very angry guitars) - plus a drum machine - but, thanks to producer Cybersank, they sound like 1000 Homo DJ's laying waste to civilization. And do you know what the ***really*** scary part is? Beneath nearly all of it, are things called songs...
Y'know, choruses, melodies, hooklines. Stuff you can hum on the bus between meals without ruining your appetite for destruction. Fill your head with noise. Punch holes in walls. Fall back and bleed in amazement. If Mötley Crüe really wanna come back strong - this is what they're gonna have to sound like.

Absolute proof that Big Rock has a future.

XXXX 1/2

Neil Jeffries