Sunday, December 17, 2023

Exordium Mors - Sacrifice, Perish & Demise

 
Cost: $1.00

While this was certainly a nice find for a dollar, I have mixed feelings about it. The songs are rooted in mid-late '90s Scandinavian black metal, with many of those weaknesses shored up nicely with thrash and death metal influences. The leadwork is good and they aren't afraid of dropping in wild soloing. It's much less monotonous than the music I'd associate with the average modern black or death metal release. 

On the other hand, when put up against just about any more consciously old school sounding band with decent songwriting ability, I think this would fall quite a bit short. I'll admit part of this is personal preference, as while I like faster tempos, I'm not a fan of out and out blasting (of which there are some sections here). The songs are varied and chaotic enough to not be boring, but aside from liking the guitarwork, I wasn't amazed. I was disappointed that a band sporting a Necrovore shirt and covering Venom weren't more old school sounding.

Speaking of the "Black Metal" cover, I thought incorporating blast beats into it at points was a bit silly, but it's far from the worst version I've heard. There are enough other things done right that it comes across as a fairly respectable cover.

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