Malfeitor has caught more than just my attention with their style, country and most importantly, their music. They consist of ex members of OSSDM monsters like Egypt or the mighty Excruciate and the moment I saw that, I fell in deperate need to obtain this album. Apparently they've been around for over 20 years and have finally released their debut album, ''Dum Morior Orior''. Thankfully, Hellthrasher Productions have provided me with a promotional copy, and I was absolutely pumped about the upcoming experience of OSSDM. And the album has striked me down with a very expected blow, but there were some peculiar twists which I had not quite apprehended.
''Dum Morior Orior'' is a vigorous piece of tormenting Swedish death metal, played in almost the exact vein of forfathers and fellow countrymen Entombed, Dismember or Grave. Though the album certainly did come with a few twists of its own that I had not included in the ''Upcoming Assaults'' list. While I had expected a more doomy, depressing atmosphere to overwhelm me, the riffs came quite the oppoiste as they were rabid tremolo bursts and shatteringly brutal chughs with bits and pieces of technical glimpses scattered here and there. When I mean brutal, I certainly don't mean the same pervasive and boring sound created by brutal death metallers. I mena real riffs, with striking energy and comprehensible structures and patters followed easily, and thus still very crushing and intricate. The riffs channel in between thrashy, chord-driven stompers and descending tremolo pickings that follow a more distinct trail, and get constantly refreshed in dynamics with the multiple usage of drum chokes and other percussion tricks that go pretty well with the album.
There is no great separation between the songs, besides a few spot-on highlights that support different structure and sound. All the tracks and outrageously vigorous and brutally constructed, but unfortunatey there's little that tells them apart. ''Exile From Sanity'' or ''When The Last Breath Fades'' are very straightforward and versatile tracks, filled with a tons of muted tremolo progression and conspicous open-string riffing along with a small dose of Swedish grooving to build up the backbone of the anatomy. The thing that I loved about ''Dum Morior Orior'' is that it's like train of pounding brutality that never ceases in speed. There may be mid-paced sections that show up every once in a while, but the abhorrently tremolo-driven riffs are always non-stop and absolutely ferocious and even sometimes catchy, at that. Even the vocals which seem to be rather chaotic and less expolited in the delivery, are full of energy and carry immense spunk to support the rest of the song. This effect may be numbing after a while, but it's damn worth it if you want some great Swedeath.
The melodious sections are fairly limited to only a handful on this album, which is a saddening thing, because I can never think of my Swedeath heroes Emtombed or Dismember without a blood-chilling groove frequently appearing in the background and thus bringing up some immense atmosphere to the album. There riffs are usually muffled and have an old-school vibe to them, so the atmosphere is usually attained easily. But overall, once you consider the album as a whole, it becomes a great gem in your eyes and earns, atleast for fans of Swedeath, high ranks, especially when you put into consideration the amount of good death metal bands that have appeared this year so far. The songs are hard to separate, so I can't really point out obvious highlights, but all tracks are almost equally well composed so it feels like the highlight of the album, is the album itself. ''Dum Morior Orior'' could have been more eccentric and could have used some more ambience, but other then that, I wish you a good headbang.
Highlights:
And The Sky Turned To Rage
Rolling With Corpses
Soujourn Hell
When The Last Breath Fades
Rating: 90%
No comments:
Post a Comment