Blood Mortized - Blood Mortized

BLOOD MORTIZED -  Blood Mortized (VRYKOBLAST - CD 2009)

Wow, maybe Blood Mortized shouldn’t be labelled as the so called “super-group”, as the people who play in it aren’t fuckin’ rock stars, but it is definitely worth to mention that people like Mattias Borgh (ex Crypt of Kerberos), Mattias Parkkila (ex Egypt, ex Stigmata, nowadays Malfeitor), Benny Moberg (Malfeitor) and Anders Biazzi (ex Amon Amarth) are involved in the band. And while some of such bands turn out to be a disappointment, like Crucifyre and Mr Death for instance, then I must say that I liked Blood Mortized quite much. First thing, which I’ve heard from this band was their tape EP “Bestial”, with three absolutely crushing death metal tracks. Soon I decided also to get the debut CD, what wasn’t so easy, as the label, which released it - Vrykoblast Productions from Singapore – had really poor distribution. I don’t even know if they still exist or if they didn’t fuck the band up in the ass after the release of “Blood Mortized”, but fuck that… I’ve got the CD now, so I’m happy.

There’s one thing, which I don’t like about “Blood Mortized”. It is the fact that the album has 12 songs and lasts for about an hour, what in my opinion is simply too much. That long running time affected the quality of the material and let some more mediocre songs appear on the album. I don’t wanna say that some of these tracks are shit, because really the whole album is either very good or good at least, but I guess it would have a stronger and more lethal effect, if “Blood Mortized” was shorter and had only eight, but really killer songs. Like for example I’m not so fond about “Devil’s Vengeance”, which annoys me with the harmonies in the Amon Amarth style. “Cannibal Object”, “Winter Tale” and “Autumn Whispers” are also some of those mediocre songs… not terribly bad, but just not as good as rest of the material. “Autumn Whispers” is almost boring, with these over seven minutes of slow, melancholic playing… It doesn’t really work, especially if after such song you would expect perhaps something faster, but the next song, “Black Bird Blues”, is again slow (but much better than the “Autumn Whisper” in my opinion, with really killer main riff).

But luckily there are also songs that are so fuckin strong that they’re able to crush the walls and turn the cities into dust. Like “Wishing Hell” – what a damn good song, so damn heavy, with great riffing and chorus part. Also “Suicide Escape Plan”, “Slay Me Down to Rest” (slow, heavy… arrghhh), “To Advance is to Die” (great riffs!)… I can mention really quite few songs from this album. “Funeral Ride” is another great track – very melodic, very catchy, almost epic and melancholic, but really good in my opinion. And “Black Bird Blues”, which I already mentioned and which has one of the most infectious riffs (melodies) from the whole album. Style wise Blood Mortized sounds obviously 100% Swedish: the production of their “Blood Mortized” is classic Sweden and also the music is traditional Swedish stuff. But I think this album sounds more like the recent Swedish albums rather than Nihilist; think of some of the last Dismember albums, as well as Entrails, Evocation, Unleashed and these sort of Swedish death metal bands. Don’t expect death metal, which would be very fast or very brutal; it’s rather mid paced or slow all the way through, often melodic, but not overly melodic luckily, well played and produced... Definitely very typical for this country, not original, but damn good anyway! I wish the band was maybe more violent, maybe in the way, which Bloodbath did their early albums – what means shorter songs, but with some more relentless and straight forward attitude in them? Well, something what Blood Mortized did on “Bestial” EP really. Anyway, I like this CD, so all those complains are nothing major and in the end I can focus just on the good riffing, good melodies, aggression and great feeling, which such music creates. Hail!

Standout tracks: “Wishing Hell”, “Blackbird Blues”, “Suicide Escape Plan”, “Funeral Ride”

Final rate: 73/100