“It’s Rogga time,” but let’s face it when is it not? With so many bands on the go Mr Johansson is normally kicking about somewhere or the other. I decided due to the ties with Luci Fulci, naming themselves after his Gothic terror flick, that it was time to take my turn on one of his releases. It’s not all about Rogga of course and joining him here we have Matthias Fiebig, his companion in Paganizer on drums and Mike Hrubovcak formerly of Monstrosity and Rumplestiltskin Grinder on vokills. You know exactly what you are in for on the sequel to last album Rise Of The Rotten and that’s good old Swedish style, gore infected death metal. Time to rev up those chainsaws and see how long we can avoid the vile Doctor Freudstein.

Chugging straight in on Cadavers Emerge and partaking in mausoleum butchery its quickly noted that gurgling vocals are high in the mix and it’s pretty easy to follow these ten gruesome tales. We are showered in maggots and decay and there’s plenty more rancid meat to be found from the chugging groove as we are threatened with terror, torture and torment. Messages play with horror tropes and we are warned to ‘Beware Of The Woods’ next. Devil worship goes on in between the trees and the dead will rise. It’s good bouncy gruesomeness and by now you can leave your brain at the door, if it’s not already been pickled in a jar and swig a beer along to the rolling drums and morbid melodies. “It burns” we are informed on ‘The Realm Of The Cursed.” The shuffling gait of the song lurches away and there are some strange noises amidst it all, sounds like a blade being sharpened in the tool-shed. “Join Us” we are beseeched as the dead but still suffering ghouls party on down and feast upon flesh.

With subtle changes of pace from one song to the other it is admittedly a bit one-dimensional musically, still it’s quite efficient butchery and you will no doubt be fixating on Hrubovcak’s vocals and playing a game of guess the movie as he screams out “the gates are open” and we find ourselves surrounded by corpses. It’s not all Fulci obsessed although his greatest trilogy of films are all cited. We get ‘The Book Of Eibon’ taking us to The Beyond and ‘The Gates Of Hell’ aka ‘City Of The Living Dead’ to Dunwich and a trail of hanging priests and vomited entrails. Along the way watch out for resurrection and reanimation via meteor showers and a mention of ‘From Dusk To Dawn’, ensuring all supernatural entities are accounted for.

There’s not much more to say here, the album doesn’t rely on overloads of sampling like many such bands would. They don’t plunder theme song signatures from the film, they simply march on through things over a satisfactory 35-minute running time and deliver the goods, turning the screw, just as you would expect.

(7/10 Pete Woods)

https://pulverised.bandcamp.com/album/the-mortuary-hauntings