Memento Mori

Morbific, Squirm Beyond The Mortal Realm (Memento Mori 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , ,

Death metal menacers Morbific return with their second long-player, Squirm Beyond The Mortal Realm.

I hear it is dark and cold in Finland, and if that is true then this is the right music for the place. Morbific started only two years ago and is peopled by Jusa Janhonen (bass, vocals), Onni Väkeväinen (drums), and Olli Väkeväinen (guitar). The title of their first album, Ominous Seep of Putridity, is a hint into the sound they produce, but don’t rely on that clue too much. The new record is sludgy and peculiar, layered as it is with both groove and dissonance in musical constructions that seem to delight in their confrontational architecture.

The ten-track set opens on the title song, and it is a lesson in avoiding expectations because there is no way accurately to anticipate what you are about to hear when you drop the needle. The music cracks through hook and groove then into blistering speed and on to peppered crunches with little regard to the disequilibrium that the lack of transition instills. It happens fast, and there is no road map. “Bind, Torture, Snuff” does this too, but you are getting a little balance now having survived the opener. The sour lead break is no surprise when it lands and still it is a delight. The vocals are indecipherable growls. Each and all parts are essential.

The album does require some endurance from its listeners, it’s true, but it rewards them with its originality and verve. Consider “Suicide Sanctum,” which is a low-running rambler and the longest track on the record. Much of it beats at a slower tempo and it is a searching kind of song. It is not an exploration as much as it is a demand for answers, and attitude which foments urgency. Given its extra heaviness, it is one of my favorites. And then there is “Initiation into Oblivion,” the shortest song, which is patient and eerie in the extreme. It is quiet, sweet poison in your ears, leaving completely vulnerable for the next track, “Meth Mansion Murders.” This album is a house of horrors in an unstable dimension. Recommended.

Squirm Beyond The Mortal Realm is out now in digital, and it is on vinyl through Me Saco Un Ojo Records, there is a CD from Memento Mori, plus a cassette version is provided by Headsplit Records. You can have it any way you want it.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://morbific.bandcamp.com/album/squirm-beyond-the-mortal-realm

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/morbific

Me Saco Un Ojo Records, https://www.mesacounojo.com/

Headsplit Records, https://headsplitrecords.storenvy.com/

Memento Mori, http://memento-mori.es/store.php

© Wayne Edwards

Morbific, Squirm Beyond The Mortal Realm (Memento Mori 2022)

Rotheads, Slither In Slime (Memento Mori 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Romanian death metal band Rotheads bring the menace on their second full-length album, Slither In Slime.

From Bucharest, death metal ministers Rotheads have been laying down the riffs since 2014. Originally springing up as a side project for members of the band Keeng Ra’at, Rotherads have definitely become their own thing. Their first long-player, Sewer Fiends (2018), hit the street hard and the ranks of the band’s followers have been swelling ever since. Their music has death metal as its starting point and infuses thrash and surprising catchiness to create something that you will not hear anywhere else.

The new album has seven luscious tracks. “Vampyric Inbreeding” calls the meeting to order with a deceptively straightforward death metal set-up in the rhythm, guitars, and vocals. The divergences are manifest with choppy riffs and tasty licks somehow living in the caustic environment. “Lost in the Cemetery Gardens” sounds like it could be an overture at times; very theatrical and dramatic but also dark. “Gut Mauled” is a walk up a haunted mountain trail with lost guides who turn on you with a grin on their lips and knives in their hands. Yeah. Exactly like that. Great song.

The band next shows us “Gore Coffin,” raring at pace – there is no time to get out of the way. The pliant guitar line has a mesmerizing effect, a hypnotizing influence. “Spectral Visitation” carries with it the weight of doom as it pulls back misty veils to reveal another world. “Skin Forest” is a tome of dark secrets that are both right at hand and also from distant lands. Finally, “Dragged Through Existence” has the last word and makes the most of the opportunity. It is the longest song on the record and the most densely composed, and it will churn beneath the shell of your consciousness long after it seems to be over.

The music on this album is death metal expanded in a way I have never heard before. It is captivating, with all the strong metal roots needed for sustenance and such an incredible variety of otherness that you are constantly engaged while you’re listening to it. Highly recommended.

Slither In Slime is out on July 25th through Memento Mori. Peruse the label’s website or hit up Bandcamp at the links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://rotheads.bandcamp.com/album/slither-in-slime

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/rotheads

Memento Mori, http://memento-mori.es/home.php

© Wayne Edwards

Rotheads, Slither In Slime (Memento Mori 2022)

Ectoplasma, Inferna Kabbalah (Memento Mori 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

Steeped in a horrifying glaze of dark otherness, the new Ectoplasma record is a feast for your twitching senses.

Since 2104, Ectoplasma has been spreading its dank word in the heavy metal scene. Springing up from Greece, this throat-punching death metal act has released a host of EPs and splits, plus three previous long-players, most recently White-Eyed Trance (2019). According to the band, the new album “shamelessly manifested their devotion to muddy, organic, disgusting, bone-breaking, and rotten-to-the-core death metal.” Who would argue with a musical self-description like that? The credited musicians on the new album are Giannis Grim (vocals and bass) and Dimitris Sakkas (guitar and drums).

Nicely fuzzy guitars startle the death metal arrangement on the first song, “God Is Dead, Satan Lives (Rosemary’s Baby).” A welcome groove steps in fairly early in the track and gives it pace and wings. “Appalling Abomination” has a darker initial presence, and a thicker heaviness. The beehive gets broken open in the first minute, however, and whirling, dizzying speed takes over. And then the groove kicks in again. I am liking this combination.

Later on, the title track bears the band’s death metal teeth and the gruff vocalizations are their most sinister so far. The bass line that opens “Gruesome Sacred Orgasms” is most inviting, and the stabby nature of the following riffs thoroughly sells the concept of the song title. “Filth-Ridden Flesh” offers callbacks to earlier tracks, and the closer drips hot, toxic wax on the set with a menacing cadence. There were a number of good surprises on the album and overall it hit the right spots for me. Recommended.

Inferna Kabbalah sprang to life on January 24th through Memento Mori and Rotted Life. Touch the links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://ectoplasma187.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Ectoplasma-1579524392276613

Memento Mori, http://www.memento-mori.es/

Rotted Life, https://www.rottedlife.com/

Ectoplasma, Inferna Kabbalah (Memento Mori 2022)