Debut Mason Hill album Against the Wall is well constructed, melodic and powerful

Against The Wall is an energetic, classy debut from young hard rockers Mason Hill

By Malcolm Dome
( Classic Rock )
published
Mason Hill - Against The Wall
(Image: © 7HZ Recordings)

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

It’s taken five years, but finally Glaswegians Mason Hill have an album to their name. And it’s been worth the wait. If you enjoy Gun, Little Angels and Skin, then you’ll go a bundle on what these five do. 

The songs are well constructed, melodic and powerful. Predicated on Scott Taylor’s emotive vocal style, and with the quick-fire guitar interplay between James Bird and Marc Montgomery, the band have come up with an album of mostly memorable songs. 

No Regret and Against The Wall have the brawn of air-punching anthems, while Who We Are shows they can do a power ballad. Find My Way betrays the strut and groove of arena rock, and Hold On is a slow burner that soon catches fire. 

One or two tracks, such as We Pray, are a little ordinary, but for the most part the album displays an exciting young talent.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.