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MORGENGRAU
Blood Oracle

Unspeakable Axe (2018)
Rating: 9/10

Well this one is a much anticipated work; Texan death metallers Morgengrau finally getting round to releasing their sophomore effort some five years after 2013 debut Extrinsic Pathway blasted us into oblivion.

Produced by Harris Johns and featuring artwork from Nick Keller – who provided paintings for such blockbuster movies as The Lord Of The Rings – it’s no wonder this one had me rubbing my hands when it popped into my mailbox.

The moniker Morgengrau originates from the surname of vocalist / guitarist Erika Morgengrau, who in turn is backed on this record by Nick Norris (guitar), Jacob Holmes (bass) and Kevin Elrod (session drums).

Morgengrau’s debut was one of the finest death metal albums I’d heard this side of the millennium and thankfully Blood Oracle lives up to expectation; a heavy-as-fuck ominous plodder of fusty air and suffocating, macabre chords. Forget generic blast-beats and clicky drum structures, this is morbid, intelligent death metal of the highest, putrid order, which squirms its way loose via the slow, doom-laden nods of the foggy title track; a bestial slab of murky metal built upon the dense, melancholic riffage, the grim percussive thuds and Erika’s foul, guttural pukes.

Rarely does this album lift its head to reach a speed. Instead, this one rolls like gloopy mist across a moss soaked mire, the bleak chords worming their way like some will-o’-the-wisp as the bass rattles like a sombre church bell. Reeking of the foulest odour, ‘Blood Oracle’ is constructed of massive, catchy segments of gloom.

‘Wolves Of Thirteen’ follows and is a grey haze of hammering percussion and fetid galloping ghoulishness. The thickening mould is punctuated by a swirling eerie solo as the bass chugs in unrelenting fashion to bat away the wisps of disease. The melodious, melancholic passages still permeate the cloying air as Gothic effects provide an atmosphere akin to a haunted church ruins on some rain-sodden moor.

And that syrupy doom remains within the context of the enveloping layers as the suspenseful chords of ‘Progression’ toy with an ominous Slayer design fused with Autopsy’s sick-ridden coating.

‘Poised At The Precipice Of Doom’ follows suit. This one comes simmering and clanking like some rust-plagued zombie emerging from its damp tomb, the squirming chords akin to parasitic worms leading themselves away from the sarcophagus in order to find new flesh. This track literally lives up to its title; the festering bass running deep and hideous beneath the thick, gluey layers of silt as the track builds with an unnerving clatter. The first two-minutes are a hypnotic pulse of soiled gloom before the pace suddenly picks up and the chattering bacteria begin to snap away at your flesh – Erika’s sneers a ghastly commanding over the hasty framework of speeding drums and unrelenting guitar.

‘Forced Exodus’ again flirts with deathly Slayer nuances, but the likes of Asphyx and Grave also come to mind until the speed snares us with its rusty hook-like appendages, before the frightful ‘Invert The Marker’ creeps in on a solid, juddering riff and weighty percussive plod, where again the mood is built slowly before the ghastly gallop ensues.

Finally, after a short atmospheric piece (‘Incipit Bellum’), we find ourselves at the mercy of album closer ‘Evocation Of The Wheel’; a sickly, sturdy mess of threatening barrage causing the gravestones to quake as again that bass and drum shudder, shaking off any remnants of morning dew. This is another sepulchral plodder of the foulest, most pungent order – the funeral chugging working in tandem with the dismal vocal burps and rasps, while cavernous leads make their miserable way through the pea-soup fog.

Each instrument, throughout this mouldy opus, acts as a burrowing, reaching tentacle, dredging the depths of the early 90s death metal scene for inspiration and yet burrowing into new ground in quest for life.

Neil Arnold

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