With members of Exmortem in its ranks, you’d expect the debut full length from Denmark’s Spectral Mortuary to be lifeless blast fest, but in truth it looks like Mighty Music may have unearthed one of Europe’s hidden death metal gems.
This is just damn fine death metal from top to bottom. Much like the recent Aeon release, it’s not particularly original and has some tangible obvious influences (Sinister, Deranged, Iniquity, the technicality of the Florida scene the chunkiness of the Belgian scene and of course Exmortem), but the end result is just a sheer assault of competent, blistering death metal.
Other than instrumental closer “Concluding Carnage”, these 11 tracks spit forth with slicing complexity (“Necrotic Flesh Cravings”, “Prime Murder Suspect”), menacing growls and thunderous grooves (“Autophagist”), all with a classic death metal lyrical lean of death and destruction and the very slightest solo work the accent the brutality (“Hogtied and Waiting”, “Weapons”). There’s no frills, no tangents, no attempts at progression, just pure unadulterated, churning death metal of a pretty damn high caliber.
Backed by a bludgeoning but crisp Berno Studio (Amon Amarth, Deranged, The Haunted), production, Spectral Mortuary’s assault on European death metal is complete and I highly recommend this for death metal fans looking for a relatively ‘new’, unheard of band to freshen up their death metal collection.
