It has been a long damned time since I have posted a new entry to Fear Of Tomorrow and it is high time I took the time to do this again. Since the last post I have taken on a new job and found my time slowly decreasing for writing as I have wanted to do something other than reviews for a while but the inevitable writer's block was there in full force. Alas the curse was lifted and it has enabled me to write about Cursed, the debut from German death metal band Morgoth; a band I became familiar with at 2012's Maryland Deathfest.
Germany is a country well known for its contributions to the heavy metal world as a whole. Whether it be Wolf Hoffmann's shredding solos on an Accept album, Angelripper on a Sodom album, or Mille Petrozza crushing it with Kreator, one thing remains clear; those Germans have some serious balls. Morgoth is a bit of an exception to these bands as the latter two laid down the ground work for death metal with their insane thrash; Morgoth is not thrash but death metal in full force!
When listening to a track like "Body Count" experienced listeners to old school death metal may have a hard time identifying this as a European death metal album; it lacks the sound of the bands from Scandinavia and sounds more like a product of Tampa's Morrisound Studios. Yes this sounds American in it's approach and most closely resembles Leprosy-era Death. Vocalist Marc Grewe also bears a striking resemblance to one John Tardy and makes the confusion of where it came from even that much more difficult. One thing is for certain at this point, it is quite the awesome track to bring the band to new fans as it represents the inimitable 1991 in death metal all too well.
"Isolated" is another track that showcases slow moving death metal and the pain of social separation. Are you being pulled aside for a death sentence? Or are you the one inflicting the death blow upon yourself? As the tension within the track rises the duo of guitarists up the ante with a floe of riffs at the listener at breakneck speed until the speed ceases, as do you. This is followed by the more straightforward "Sold Baptism" which attacks religious taboos much like many of the death metal contemporaries had before them. Nearest the end of the track you almost get a feeling of Autopsy's Mental Funeral; slow plodding doom followed up with great speed and providing an excellent balance across.
Morgoth would go on to record another death metal album 2 years later, and then a 3rd album which strayed from this path and eventually they disappeared only to be revived in 2010. For being a band from a country not well known for no frills death metal, Morgoth take the genre and run with it; making for a smorgasbord of different styles of death metal all contained on one album. Check out another German death metal band (Torchure), as well as some more well known German classic bands. Until next week!
- Tom
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