This new outfit is helmed by vocalist Keijo Niinimaa who those in the know may well recognise as being chief mouthpiece of Rotten Sound. If that has you anticipating some grinding harshness and tracks that bomb along in the blink of an eye you may well be in for a surprise as Morbid Evils take things to the other end of the spectrum and play nasty doom fuelled dirges that crawl out at the speed of a tortoise on ketamine. Don’t worry too much though as this collection of six tricks are still going to punish you and this debut album following on from last year’s digitally released single In Hate will certainly run you through a gamut of torturous audio misanthropy.
Opener ‘Cruel’ lives up to its name with what sounds like a fire crackling away in the background and dangerously showering sparks away over a slothful but powerfully battering drum canvas and heavy sluggish riffs. It’s sludgy and down tempo and with a bit of an industrialised feel about it as it’s robotically chundered out. Vocals join in, rough, raw and growling away with bear poked with stick distemper running through them. Minor tempo changes do occur and this gradually evolves into a groove with thick bass tempering the already brooding sound from the hefty production. Snares clatter away and it’s as though the very first track has been designed to drag you down and consume you whole. As the sound loosens and becomes slightly less crushing with it and the feel of the robotic drumming it suddenly occurs on second song ‘Crippled’ that this owes a certain nod in the direction of the mighty Godflesh, hell the track title even could be one of theirs. It’s not a case of getting too excited by that prospect though as this is not anything like on par with the Brummies at their best. Still it retains a bleak and heavy flow to it and on loud really gives the speakers a damn good shaking. Utilising a brutal thump and thud as its main battering ram it’s as though the band are trying to force their way into your head and ears and to a large extent they succeed in doing so, invasively possessing you with turgid rhythmic thrusts and gravelly vocals on numbers like the aforementioned ‘In Hate.’
Lack of variation is the main bugbear here, the percussive racket always keeps things too loud to nod off but sluggishness caused by repetition definitely sets in. It comes almost as a relief when some strange sound effects and an almost Southern sounding groove come into play on ‘South Of Hell’ (guess there’s a clue in that title) and this one has a real nasty feel about it reminiscent of everything from Rwake to Today Is The Day and even some Necrophagia from the guitars. Heralding the apocalypse with 10 minute closer ‘Burning World’ with a great well placed sample and more thudding cataclysm, this is an album that although somewhat one-dimensional is a solid debut with plenty of room to build upon in the future; if of course we are all granted one!
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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