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MORBID CROSS
Denied Salvation EP

Self-released (2024)
Rating: 6.5/10

Oh boy, when I heard the opening doomy chords and saw the band name and cover art the fetid juices began to flow. Sadly, my excitement dwindled within a minute as New Jersey-based combo Morbid Cross very quickly became just another generic thrash act. That’s not to say that this EP is poor, far from it, but I feel like I’ve heard those vocal retorts a million times before alongside the zipping riffs.

It’s only on the title track where the guys find some really dense, trudging riffs and creepy aesthetics, reminding me of cult 80s act Jim Jones And The Kool Ade Kids. Opening song ‘Night Solace’, however, is unremarkable and overlong, drawing heavily from the current thrashcore crop of confrontational outbursts. I often think of Powertrip when Zach Marcus spits out those rasping vocals, while the band also fuses the Teutonic blitzkrieg of, say, Sodom with Exodus. Closer ‘High Extinction Rate’ features a vicious serrated riff as the devilry takes on a Municipal Waste-style of abrasive moshing.

Morbid Cross are building up a reasonable discography with another EP and two full-length albums behind them prior to this release, but their brand of violence doesn’t quite live up to expectation.

Neil Arnold

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