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colin040, August 13th, 2025
Before one even listens to Let’s Start a War, two negative things already stand out. The cover artwork looks extremely cheap and the fact that Paul Speckmann appears on it not once but twice doesn’t promise much good. Hell, even the mediocre Collection of Souls (arguably Master’s worst record) featured a promising artwork at least. Another alarming sign includes the Nazareth cover; if you’ve heard Master covering Thin Lizzy before, then you know that hard rock isn’t their thing. Simply put: had you stumbled upon this record in the early 00’s and decided to skip it because of these two reasons, I wouldn’t blame you.
The good news is that Let’s Start a War is the first decent Master record since On the Seventh Day God Created… Master. Due to its energetic performances and a reasonable killer to filler ratio, it comes off as a death metal record that’s actually enjoyable on its own. In case you have no idea what Master sound like, think of death metal that comes from the heart instead of the mind; it’s loud and proud and as intellectual as your daily construction worker. Paul Speckmann continues to sound like an angry civilian and barks about everything wrong with the world. Riffs are delivered in a distinctive Master vein; meaning that you’ll stumble upon a hybrid of familiar thrash/death metal riffs with the usual nods to hardcore. Drums continue to be effective without relying on unnecessary nonsense (e.g. obnoxious blastbeats), while the bass follows the guitars like a loyal dog. In this case, it’s also worth mentioning that the crisp guitars and balanced drums (neither too prominent, nor stagnant) turn Let’s Start a War in a real treat and I would argue that the production is lot more desirable than some of the more hollow-sounding productions of some of Master’s recent records (yes, I plan to review those someday).
Just like Faith Is in Season, the writing formula continues to be somewhat messy; meaning you could swap most of these songs with each other to the point that it would hardly affect the record’s pacing. However, Let’s Start a War sounds vital, features plenty of highlights and doesn’t overstay its welcome. There’s plenty of variety here and while I’d like to praise all the highlights in great detail, I’ll save your time. ‘Cast One Vote’ is classic Master and immediately points out all the goods of the early era, even if I can’t help but get a Motörhead vibe from that proud-to-be-loud-rocking intro riff. Then again, some people have compared Paul Speckmann to Lemmy… so it’s all good. The bone-crushing ‘Every Dag Has Its Day’ is a semi-chugging guitar pounder of physical heaviness and could have easily been a lost Cianide tune from this era, if only you’d replace Mike Serun’s monotone gruffness with Paul Speckmann’s commanding presence. Now I love Cianide’s doom/death metal records (e.g. most of what they’ve done), but their death metal stuff is cool too, so it’s nice to hear something more in that vein. Other highlights include the nihilistic Slayer-esque ’Command Your Fate’ and the belt ‘n’ riff attack of ‘Disturbed’ (which has a loop of an intro riff that’s somewhat reminiscent of Destruction) and while I’ve had my criticism to share about Master playing thrash on Collection of Souls, these tunes easily destroy everything on that record.
That being said, it’s hard to ignore the flops on Let’s Start a War. The Nazareth cover sounds totally out of place and I never saw the appeal of any death metal band covering hard rock, considering that the vocal styles are way too different. There’s also the peculiar bluesy ‘Purchase a New Handgun’… which I expected to erupt into death metal action at one point, but it never did. Other bizarre tracks include ‘American Freedom’, which bombs the streets with its explosive guitars, but loses steam halfway through, while ‘Watch What You Wish For’ promises to be a hyperactive hardcore/death metal hybrid, but it quickly becomes ruined by some never-ending samples.
If you’re looking for Master at their best, then you won’t find it here, but if you crave more ancient-sounding death metal from one of death metal’s pioneers, then Let’s Start a War is worth checking out. Again, the cover art is terrible (this is one of those rare cases where the record’s other versions feature a much better cover art), but the music itself is fine for what it is.
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