Mortification - Scribe of the Penateuch

All the pre-release talk about how this album is hearkening back to the Scrolls sound was inevitably going to invite comparisons between the albums, and in that regard it is lacking. People can certainly like it for what it is (though I personally can't understand how), but as a sequel/sister album/whatever to Scrolls, it fails miserably. I don't feel like that's even disputable.

It seems like Steve is forcing something that doesn't come naturally anymore. He's still a very good bass player, but the songwriting is not there.

I listened to a song on Youtube. Sadly, it wasn't very good. I thoroughly enjoyed Erasing the Goblin, so I had high hopes. Oh, well...

A six song EP should've been an easy slam dunk. If they do anything after this, I really hope he gets inspired and takes his time making it.

On a positive note, at least Lincoln sounds pretty good. I doubt he wrote any of the material (other than solos), so I can't blame him.

Troublezone wrote:

On a positive note, at least Lincoln sounds pretty good. I doubt he wrote any of the material (other than solos), so I can't blame him.

Yeah, I noticed the solos are the only thing I heard that I liked (too bad they're lost among the poor songs).

Quote :

both bands continue to break boundries and push the envelope!

HAHAH WHAT??? Both bands are doing what has already been done before. Not saying that's bad, just stating a fact.

Lurideath wrote:

Quote :

both bands continue to break boundries and push the envelope!

HAHAH WHAT??? Both bands are doing what has already been done before. Not saying that's bad, just stating a fact.

Extradiefor on YouTube...

Well that was more like it. The first two didn't do much for me (though I did like the solos) but that one was much better. Still not as good as the material on Erasing and Evil Addiction but maybe enough to make me give the album a chance.

I am not feeling those tunes at all... I've listened to all 3 of them a few times, and they are doing NOTHING for me. Very bland, in my opinion.

I want to like this, I really do. But these are bad.

In art school, we were taught, that if you're going to "critique" something you can't just say, "it sucks," or "It's ugly." You have to give actual feedback as to why you don't like it. Constructive criticism it's called. So, here's mine as best as I can describe it.

Vocals - There seems to be no connection....or no flow/rhythm between the vocals and the music. I'm not sure if that explains it, but it just feels like the vocals are not related to the music. And because of that, there is no rhythm, no hooks. I love death metal, but even with a deep gutteral growl, there's gotta be continuity. That's the first thing that really stands out to me. Good death metal, the vocals hit on certain points in the music, if that makes sense.

Music - I'm not able to pick up any grooves or clear cut riffs or anything that creates that flow and emotion and attitude of a particular song. There's just chug-chug-chug-chug....tat tat tat tat tat tat. It sounds like the early stages of a garage band trying to find themselves...but you don't make an album out of it because you have a long ways to go to perfect your songs and sound.

Bass - typical of Mortification, the base is overbearing and drowns out the guitar and only makes the "muddy" problem muddier. Everything is just melting together and working against each other like a bad black metal band....or a bad grind metal band.

I'm not going to go back and compare to "old Morty" because I know bands hate that and nobody wants to be compared to something they did 20 years ago. Nevertheless, we can't help but measure this to previous bars set much higher.

Man...steve's voice is just...bleh...
I used to love mortification, they were my first real death metal band!

metalhead777 wrote:

Man...steve's voice is just...bleh...

I chalk that up to him trying to sound like he used to but not being able to. I found his vocals on the last two Mortification albums perfectly fine so I don't think he's losing his touch. He just needs to stick with what works best. Instead of trying to win back old fans (which doesn't seem to be working) he just needs to continue doing what his current fans enjoy.