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MORFINA
Deathrasher

Self-release (2018)
Rating: 8/10

Here’s Morfina; a strange bunch you won’t be confusing with the Uruguayan stoners of the same name, although this unhealthy bunch are of South American origin too, hailing from the depths of Colombia.

I’ll hold my hands up and say that I don’t have much knowledge of this band, but the music on offer speaks for itself. The team deliver speedy death / black / thrash that is crude in its approach, and at times rather thin due to the rather average production. That’s a good thing though, these ghouls clearly opting for that fraught and snappy lo-fi technique which the continent has spewed out over the decades to great acclaim.

Deathrasher does exactly what it says on the garbage bin, with wild sinewy solos marrying up against tetchy, black-thrash assaults. This one is as slippery as an eel as weird traditional metal gallops are sped up, the result being slightly unorthodox thrashiness mixed with elements of the predictable. Scathing guitar scratchiness flits without any real weight, the only gloominess coming from those remote vocal rasps which sound as if they’ve been dished up in some remote cave and fed to the bats, whose squeaks and hectic flapping wings act as the drum and bass for what is essentially a blustery, uneven and cackling experience.

‘Dark Force’, ‘Into The Hell’, ‘Atomic Race’ and my favourite cut ‘Hammer To Hell’ experiment with a stuffy, darkened cacophony. ‘Hammer To Hell’ really takes the band into murkier realms, the track being slower, soggier and veering into claustrophobic death metal realms whereby the vocals become extended growls and rasps to the symphony of a killer mouldy riff. ‘Dark Force’ and ‘Into The Hell’ prefer the rough ‘n’ tumble thrash approach, meanwhile. In a sense ‘Hammer To Hell’ seems a touch out of place, but all still offer a dehydrated and pitch black atmosphere crammed with bat and rat shit as your ears and ankles are nibble by all manner of parasites.

Damn, Morfina really do have an underground thrash vibe; ‘Silence’ is fleet of foot, a scurrying slap of demented bass and drum, although the melody struggles to dominate. And then there’s the title track; another brash and rattling announcement from the crypt, the band scuttling and darting with their dynamics without providing any real weight.

Somehow, Morfina succeeds in its fury, the nifty instruments providing a slinking and above all muddy malevolence. By the time closer ‘Eternal Life’ comes lumbering from the crevice of doom, I’m almost stunned by the sudden bluster – the band coming together to form a barbaric wall of acceleration, all the while remaining wonderfully dismal.

Deathrasher is a racing, raging shitstorm of an opus best experienced while holed up in a dusty catacomb that eventually saps your life.

Neil Arnold

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