The Demonstealer, whom we shall come back to shortly, has been a band since 1998, but has also been producing released records since 2008, and so by any measure has been in the game a long time. Turns out that The Demonstealer – whilst also a band, is also one person, Sahil Makhija, from out of Mumbai, India. In recording this album, he’s enlisted a huge amount of guest personnel to help him record, including four drummers, four bassists, three lead guitarists and a keyboardist from all over the world.

“The Propaganda Machine” is a thoroughly modern extreme metal album. The first thing that hit me was the production; as opener “The Fear Campaign” came out of the speakers, I was blown away by the sheer weight of power and force of the opening salvo. The whole album is precise, powerful and superbly put together. After a bit of delving, I read that the record had been mixed and mastered at Hertz studios in Poland – and if you’ve experienced the particular sonic profile that this studio has achieved before for bands like Decapitated and Vader, you’ll know the approach that this album has taken.

In fairness though, this album, while it does have some death metal influences, particularly in the drumming, also has plenty of dollops of other modern metal, including a palpable symphonic black metal influence (think Arcturus or latter-day Dimmu Borgir), as well as some very hefty influences from the more muscular spectrum of metalcore. Second track, “Monolith of Hate”, for example, sounds very much like a band like, say, Fleshgod Apocalypse, but with clean vocals. Now, before some of your roll your eyes ad flick to the next review, let me say to you that I actually like the clean vocals in this album. Why? Well, because of two factors: a) they’re actually very sparingly used and, b) they just suit the tone and timbre of the songs.

In the main, these are pretty solid songs too. They’re well written, and they’re occasionally absurdly heavy. “The Great Dictator”, for example, would fit pretty well under the oeuvre that Vader operates under – that fairly thrash-influenced hyper-death metal tempo and immaculate delivery. At eight tracks, it’s not an album to outlive its own welcome either. It’s definitely a thoroughly competent and enjoyable listen. If I’m nit-picking, I’d say that as an overall whole, I’m not entirely sure what the overall identity of the album is; when the song works, it’s a great amalgamation of modern metal influences, but when it doesn’t (and penultimate track, “The Anti-National”, I’m talking about you) it just comes off as a bit confused.

I’d really like to see what Demonstealer could do if he worked with a number of regular band members and was able to assemble a band as he has done in Demonic Resurrection. I think it would elevate them from being a good outfit to one which had its own identity and clearer sense of what they are. However to quote The Demonstealer aka Sahil Makhija on his ethos “The thing is Demonstealer was never meant to be a ‘band’ it’s me having fun making music with musicians I’ve dreamed of writing songs and having play with”

(7.5/10 Chris Davison)

https://www.facebook.com/DemonstealerOfficial

https://demonstealerblacklion.bandcamp.com/album/the-propaganda-machine