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Ummm…ok? I feel like I’ve just finished spying on a bunch of guys who spontaneously leapt up during a game of Magic The Gathering and starting jamming out. I don’t really know a whole lot about the characters calling themselves Holy Martyr, but it almost sounds as if they’re a bunch of aged lowlifes trying to emulate the familiar classics of metal and way over doing it. And the muffled, poor production of the album, especially on the lame-ass wannabe epic power vocals takes away from some almost solid guitar displays.

It’s weird because the leads are all nasty thrash like Slayer but then these vocals kick in and don’t really suit the sound at all. It’s not hard to hear that these guys are Iced Earth fans in their attempt to slosh NWOBHM and American thrash together but something just isn’t right here. And did I mention how bad the vocals were? Ya, at times they are almost laughable especially when it gets to the point where it totally sounds unrehearsed and the singer is just drunk off of his ass wailing away into the microphone.

I did manage to muster up the will to take a listen to Hatred and Warlust more than once through and eventually I did lighten up to the realization that there is some good solos and scattered in influence but all around cool riffs. The drums sound pretty bad though.

There isn’t much else I can say about this one. If you’ve got the time you might want to check out their website because you’ll find some funny stuff in their bio and member profiles. They insist on being heavy metal badasses by each rubbing it in that they hate 90’s to present day Metallica and that "Holy Martyr never followed, does not follow will never follow some fucking musical trend. Support us or hate us." Whatever you say guys, but I’m gonna have to go with option c) feel sorry for you.