Metallica is mostly back on track as of their latest album Death Magnetic.  Iron Maiden, in turn, recently showed the world what old school live presentation is all about on their Somewhere on Tour road jaunt.  Nonetheless, metal is nearly at skid with a large percentile of today’s revisionists who cannot get away from writing songs without confounded breakdowns, or they’re making a mockery of themselves with barfed growls and/or faux satanic facades in ghoulish face paint. 

As wonderful as it’s been to see metal make a return to the masses (even as an underground phenomenon), it is threatened with stagnancy the more people who get into the scene with little substance to offer.  Working the hell out of their Sacramento region, Axiom is sculpting something potentially special with bricks borrowed from past foundries and cemented with modes of prog and modern metal blasts on A Means to an End.

Primarily the conception between two minds, Justin Herzer and Scott Whisenhunt (where bassist John Coffee fits into the scheme on this album, it’s not relayed), A Means to an End benefits from a stout showing by Metallica this year as a fair amount of this album bears similar fruits, be it the choruses of “All For Nothing” or simply the way the instrumental intro “Cell” sets up “Dead Dream” in a less devastating manner as in the beginning of Metallica’s Master of Puppets.  Still, the feeling is quite the same out the gate on A Means to an End.

At least the album strives for its own identity with airs of Tool and progressive metal like, say, Novembers Doom, though without the latter’s death roaring since Scott Whisenhunt wails cleanly throughout the album.

At first Justin Herzer’s drumming gets a bit too flashy with overambitious rolls, splashes and choppy double bass strikes that undermine the core tempo of Axiom’s music.  Undoubtedly Herzer is a gifted drummer and the further A Means to an End goes along, the more homogenous he becomes to the songs, lighting up “Nucleus” (the album’s best cut) the seven-minute-plus “Onesided” and the 8:31“Godgiven.” 

Whisenhunt’s guitars on A Means to an End give the album diverse personae through drawn and playful distortion (“Nucleus,” for example) and smooth syncopation as plucked satisfyingly on “A Perfect World” and the marathon closer “Don’t Blink.” 

As Axiom grows stronger with each song on A Means to an End, so too do they evolve as a unit.  Still to be considered in their nurturing phase, the random imperfections in the earlier part of the album are compensated later on and you can hear these guys growing alongside the very music presented on this album, exhibiting grace and maturity with piano supplementation on “A Perfect World.”  The direction the latter half of the album assumes indicates Axiom is leaning towards prog metal, which should be interesting to hear where they shift come their next recording.  You have to admire Axiom for at least sticking to a conviction against conventionalism, despite their namesake which would indicate possible adherence to metal’s contemporary norms.  Salud…

Reviewed By Ray Van Horn

Ray Van Horn, Reviews A Means To An End, Axiom