[The call of fresh blood persists, and a new voice from beyond the mortal veil has risen to cast judgement on that which whelms neither of the over or under variety.]
Blackened death metal, a genre that once indicated the absolute limit of extremity, now composes a sizable chunk of the output of the extreme metal community. With so many releases flooding the scene, bands must reach for spicier ingredients if they want to stand out. In the case of Morticide, the seasoning of choice is brutal death metal. And their second full-length album Death Cannot Hold Those with Purpose… attempts to make the case for this unholy blend of blackened brutality.
To Morticide’s credit, they almost succeed. From the chorus laden clean notes that introduce the opening track “A Living Graveyard” Morticide lunges violently from one idea to another. With a chunky riff slamming into a tremolo blast, and everything crashing into a giant breakdown before a screaming solo and a return to the clean intro section refrain, just that one song offers plenty of ideas. Throughout Death Cannot Hold‘s burly 45 minute run-time, variations on this approach make up the bulk of the songwriting.
Morticide are consistently swinging for the fences, and all of the hits come with misses, the biggest of which being that the total package fails to come together. Where there can be brilliance in the moment to moment ideas, the connective tissue, or lack thereof lets Death Cannot Hold down. This disconnect leads to songs that feel like collections of discrete passages that could be slotted in anywhere across the record. When you aren’t following the formula of an established microgenre, leaving the listener without a through-line becomes a problem. And to make matters worse, beyond the first couple of tracks, memorable riffs rarely make an appearance, leaving the back half of the album to lose my attention and drag.
Despite its rough charm showing some growth repeat spins, a final issue holds Death back from a higher score: the high screams. Whereas the low growls and gutturals aren’t particularly impressive, they are competent. The high screams on the other hand have an odd tonality, a lack of energy in the delivery and aren’t mixed in correctly, making them sit uncomfortably on top of the tracks. Attempting to shake up the dogmatic approach to harsh vocals is always welcome, but these take me out of the listening experience every time.
This is only Morticide’s second album, and while I have my issues with it, there is an earnestness and creativity that I find compelling. A middling score can indicate an album that does nothing to rise out of the masses, but in this case, it should tell you this band is ready to build their monster, they just haven’t quite fit the pieces together yet.
