Master is the death-metal brainchild of American bassguitarist /vocalist Paul Speckmann, and he started this project somewhere during 1983. This early style of death metal can be described as an "in your face" straight-forward type of bludgeoning assault; this compared to the more technical Death or more sludgy Obituary. Displeased Records considered it time to release the first two offerings of Master: Their selftitled debut and the follow up, On The Seventh Day God Created… Master. Both discs are remastered and have a bonus DVD containing some live footage, shot in the early 90s. Let's get back to nostalgia-lane! 

The debutalbum Master lasts for only 30 minutes and is often described as a "collection of demo tracks". Nonetheless, these are some excellent no-nonsense pieces of death metal which have certainly added their own style to the genre. Paul Speckmann was a pretty pissed off young man, and you can definitely hear that. According to the bio, the original sound engineer actually forgot to mix in some solos while mastering, so these have returned for this new remastered version. Also, the record features the real drumsounds compared to the heavily triggered drumkit you hear on the original recording. In the end, it sounds like a decent first effort to me.

The second album, On The Seventh Day God Created… Master featured a different line-up, featuring Cynic/Death guitarist Paul Masvidal. Maybe that his coming had something to do with it, but this record shows a great improvement in the songs. They are more technical, focused, still remaining the straightforward elements that are core of the band.

Unfortunately I've not had the chance to compare these new versions compared to their original recordings, but both sound fine to these ears! Both the bonus DVDs are pretty basic in their presentation and both feature 2 shows each. The quality is pretty mediocre since the shows are pretty amateurishly filmed. The DVD that comes with the And on the Seventh Day release is the most enjoyable of the two because of the better image & sound quality.

For this review, I`ll only rate the 're-release' part of these 2 albums. Both discs are worth getting if you don't know the band and are into oldschool death metal, and both sound fine. Displeased could have done a better job with the DVDs, like extra background material and whatnot. But again, you shouldn't look a given horse in the mouth!