Mega Colossus – Showdown
Release Date: 26th January 2024
Label: Cruz Del Sur Music
Bandcamp
Genre: Melodic Metal
FFO: Legendry, Visigoth, Power Paladin.
Review By: Kira L. Schlechter
Many times, good things come in small packages. The six-song latest by Mega Colossus is a very good thing.
Named in homage to Godzilla and fantasy fiction, this is the Raleigh, N.C., band’s fourth full-length, along with three EPs; their most recent was 2021’s “Riptime.”
Singer Sean Buchanan, guitarists/singers Bill Fischer and Chris Millard, bassist Anthony Micale, and drummer Doza Mendoza have put together a half-dozen long-ish, but extremely well-crafted, songs that have a sharp eye for detail, that indulge without overindulging.
MC mentions several things in the album bio that pop up in the opening track, the big, bright, and shimmering “Fortune and Glory.” One is that they see this album as the “Temple of Doom” to the previous album’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and thematically, that’s absolutely the case. A tale of derring-do and archaeology “through booby traps and ancient maps,” just like the movies in question, it’s built on a solid main melody riff and percolates through satisfying modulations and tempo changes throughout its first set of verses and its spirited but restrained chorus. The bio also mentions sonic references to Styx, of all things, and that is really apparent in the pre-chorus here. Sean’s voice is nothing particularly showy, but it gets the job done in its context. Solos abound, but they hold enough interest within them to keep things moving. And the bridge that comes before the final chorus is a real treat, growing stately and majestic as Sean describes the thrill of the hunt: “Tombs of hidden epic dynasties/They call to me … Legends of forgotten treasure troves/We will behold.”
“Outrun Infinity” continues that idea of exploration, this time rocketing from the distant past into the maybe not-so-distant future, “into the blackest realms of space.” The tense first verses are open and sparse, with Anthony’s bass front and center, and the lightly overdubbed pre-choruses swing out correspondingly with the lyric, “Infinite shadow/Relentlessly expands” and “Onward astral voyager/Into an unknown land.” The longer bridge section throws a wrench into the plot – as our hero has gone “beyond the bounds of time,” he encounters “another struggles with me/What age brought this one here/A modern drugged-out zombie/Perhaps an ancient seer” and their “thoughts become as one.” Another solo section, featuring a terrific Maiden-esque galloping rhythm, leads into a slightly different chorus, a bit of the bridge, and a final chorus…
“Grab the Sun” is a real show-piece, an apocalyptic “Mad Max” thrasher about war and death and violence – at least for most of it. Our narrator, whose “world is fire, blood,” has “gone mad with the sound of ax and drum” and is seemingly reincarnated over and over to fight anew: “I live, I die, I live again,” “I fight, I live, emerge again.” The terrific chorus is his battle cry: “I am the one who grabs the sun/In the land of gas and gun … Warrior’s road is where I run/Sacrifice will set me free.” But the bridge – which changes decidedly from a sonic perspective – sees him breaking the cycle, coming to the realization that “These people are not things/Are not tools for breeding” and “Because of fools like these/The land is bleeding/Bring life not death to make amends/For death’s dealt all for evil men.” He vows at last to “Embrace life not conquer/Be slaves no longer,” and the chorus – elongated and optimistic, with a glorious guitar melody – is stripped to one definitive and telling line, “WE are the ones who grab the sun.” It’s an unexpected and wonderful twist.
It’s not a total stretch to see the quirky, snide title track as political commentary to both sides – “The mind of a madman is never at waste/It doesn’t matter who wears the face” – and condemnation of both the cult of personality (“Hallelujah praise my name/Raise your voice and sing”) and of those who belong to it (it’s loaded with pointed lines like “If I brought you flowers/Would you suck upon my tongue” and “I’m gonna fuck your wife/Corrupt my daughter/With my eyes and my knife”). It really gets interesting at the end when they raise the question of who really feeds whose behavior – “I don’t feel like me, don’t know who is who/You are acting like me, who is acting just like you” – that our leaders are only reflections of who we are. Observant and astute and clever – good for them.
“Warden of the Wicked Road” begins with its chorus and a bare-bones arrangement (again, very Styx reminiscent, as is the whole song in a way) before its introspective verses set the theme. A reflection on rather the power of positive thinking, our narrator is having a tough go in the first verse – “I’ve left beyond all that I’ve ever known/But still the weight I bear has never burdened more,” he says, that those “dark thoughts won’t go away.” He reflects further in the second verse that this is a fruitless path, that “This road is not a place for the living kind/The lost ones gather here/They gather here and die,” and fears “Perhaps I’m here to stay.” But he ultimately vows to “shed this prisoner’s gown/Cast off the noose and take the crown,” reminding himself again in the chorus to “Carry on, it is the only way” and to “See the truth in all the lies” and “begin again.”
The closer, the cinematic “Take to the Skies,” with its hectic groove that perfectly matches the action, tells of the “seaplane pirate” who picks dogfights for reward – “the riches wait amongst the clouds/And the bounties will be mine.” The solo section after the first two verse/chorus sections breaks the intensity just a little, but it does introduce the mysterious bridge, where the pirate reminisces about seeing things “no man should see/A silver band above the clouds/I could hear it call to me.” He loses “enemies, comrades alike” to this Icarus-like illusion; it’s an intriguing detail where he almost sees his mortality. But he’s back to his cocky self in the third verse, where he sneers that he’ll teach this “arrogant American … what’s what.” The solo that follows is the aerial fight set to music, before the chorus repeats and Sean sings the title line to a fadeout as our hero soars away.
Mega Colossus does more in the little over half an hour of “Showdown” than a lot of bands do in twice that time. Brevity is the soul of wit, after all.
(5 / 5)
