Mike Masser's “5” is Less Like A Comeback and More of a Reckoning

Music needs balance. Focus on technicalities, it’ll turn empty. Pour too much of emotions, it’ll drift away. You will find Mike Masser’s latest album, “5” in the middle, dominating the stage with a vengeance that feels less like a comeback and more of a reckoning.

After 4 years, the US-based artist Mike Masser is back with “5”. This album blends heavy, complex layers, personal stories, and three cover tracks, including a tribute to his late best friend and an honor to his father’s fight with Alzheimer’s.

You can tell that he was part of the bustling local indie scene in the early 2000s. Each track holds a part of him that sounds nostalgic and familiar, yet with a modern, strong edge that’s ready to set everything ablaze. His iconic influences Randy Rhoads and Ozzy echoes all throughout. It’s like he’s saying, “hard rock isn’t dead,” after hitting you with his fist to prove a point.

With Wolves In The Whiskey, Masser isn’t merely opening the album. He wears his leather jacket with a bottle in hand, then kicks the door open in his worn out boots to make a statement. It stays true to its title, whiskey-soaked, unsettling, and chaotic. You can’t just describe it as poetic, it’s straight up visceral descent into decay. The part, “no god left in this poisoned well, just the ghosts I drink to kill myself,” is more like suicide note than a lyric. You don’t get a redemption, it won’t even offer a solution. What you’ll get is a haunting, devastating statement that doesn’t hide its pain and destruction all throughout.

No Sin is a protest amplified through distortion. The heavy guitars and the intensity of drums gives you a blunt image of liberty and justice of today: ripped, erased and torn. Masser doesn’t hold back when it comes to his words, he delivers lived experiences that don’t just describe but criticize. And the best part is he drops it with no filter, charging with rage as he criticizes war, power, and propaganda that drives the masses down to their knees.

Silence Speaks feels like what would happen if you took a dive into a mind full of mental and emotional turmoil. It’s internal torment dressed in dark, haunting layers of sounds. His raspy voice drives you further into its core, letting you witness the loudest battle from within that most people don’t talk about.

Masser doesn’t only deliver hard, heavy-hitting tracks. There’s this exceptional duality once he strips away all the distortion, the punchy percussion, and the sharp vocals. With Run, he sings something more raw and laid back, with verses that feel like a peak to different chapters of someone’s life. Unlike the first ones, this one feels like the most personal, telling you a story without the complexities as a breather before the next track begins.

There’s a foreboding doom stirring from the thick bassline and distorted riffs the moment Omen starts. More than the heaviness, the unsettling edge grips on every note, making it sound less like a song but more of a warning. It honestly feels like walking in the woods in the middle of the night, then there’s something you can’t quite name yet follows your every move.

If it wasn’t for his wife and other friends who encouraged him to continue music, “5” wouldn’t really come into life and honestly? We should all be grateful for that. His musicality is bone-crushing, heavy, and explosive with astounding precision and purpose. Plus apart from the technicalities is his sharp songwriting that goes beyond empty, hollow noises. He creates music with depth and substance. This hard rock album is such an experience, hard-hitting and worth every spin.