I had quite a hard time with my last and first encounter with Mortuary Drape which was the recent Peaceville re-issue of third album ‘Tolling 13 Knell’ originally released in 2000. Now the label have similarly re-activated the cult Italian acts fourth and to date last studio album ‘Buried In Time’ from 2004. If you fancy working out exactly who was in and out spinning through the revolving line-up of the band between the albums, good luck to you. I read in a recent interview that Wilderness Perversion has no problems kicking those that don’t work out, straight out on their butts and one thing is for sure there is a noticeable difference between the two albums.
I was intrigued by both the strange playing style of Tolling and its obtuse denseness as it grappled with an arcane and sinister occult vibe. I pretty much expected more of the same here but it was not quite what I got. In a way I was reminded of a band like Gehenna Norway or our own Hecate Enthroned, groups who had started playing black metal with Satanic overtones and had decided to move into a more death metal style. This was my first impression of what had happened here. The sounds of dripping water that firstly drape a dark atmosphere here and the corpse painted band on the photos taken around this time set you up for more of the same but the baying and primitive force of ‘Unending Revenge’ has things taking the form of a much more death laden barrage. Drums are formulaic beating time and the galloping pace and chugging guitar manner strikes as pretty workmanlike and formulaic. Some of the vocal barks have a bit of that demonic bite about them but the intrigue and mystery of the past album and its stygian blackness just isn’t finding its way through to me; a flailing lead guitar part does little to convince either. It darkly thrashes away with songs and album, which is an hour long in full, doing little in the way of tempo change throughout. I guess I kept thinking things were going to evolve but the band had seemingly found their groove and were going to stick to it. There are occasional atmospheric glimpses into the abyss where doom laden passages unfurl and the occultist vibe seeps through the gate but these are followed quickly by the same galloping deathly pitch detracting from the sense of atmosphere.
I have to admit to playing this album lots over the last couple of weeks trying to get to grips with it and hoping it was going to allow some sense of higher learning to shine through but either it or I am just too damn stubborn as it keeps making my mind wander and refuses to stick. Also where I find with most albums that I review tracks have unique definition that have me wanting to talk about them individually this lacks that characterisation and development. That aside it is certainly not an album that is badly played and it is a solid release but I really think I would have appreciated going back in time rather than being buried in it and check out the group’s first couple of albums which I hope may get the re-issue treatment later.
As though to re-enforce this idea or perhaps to simply taunt, after the album finishes there are two bonus tracks ‘Beyond The Veil’ and ‘The Envoy’ which were originally extra tracks on the ‘Secret Sudaria’ album of 1997. These instantly stick out from what we have heard before and deliver much more in the style I was hoping for here. There is a much more avant-garde feel to the skewed harmonics and a sense of theatricality from the vocals as the tracks inject black thrash laden melody with sinister background chants and a feeling of crypt like devil worship. Yes this is the necromancy I want to find myself obsessed by and so the mark below reflects on Buried Alone rather than these bonus numbers until that era is properly dug up.
(6/10 Pete Woods)
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