Not to get totally anal, or pigeonhole on matters of little importance to the general fanbases, but the production that went into the guitars of this EP is totally groovy. Like, maybe it would have been more fitting to bands like The Haunted, or Nightrage or Chimaira. You know, the kind of melodic crap that never got to jump the shark pretty much because it was in the fish’s digestive system from the getgo. Some may dig the shine. Even in these headquarters there is debate whether the clean tonality deserves a passing grade. We like our heaviness to be a little more filthy, and in here, as good as some of these riffs may be, it just seems like they have been sanitized especially for mass consumption.
In the spirit of not losing sight of the music though, one has got to admit that what Mordbrand does is undeniably death metal. Not overtly technical, nor ridiculously melodic, this Swedish trio has what’s in their blood because, err, apparently every other Swedish musician has the gene; the gift of craftsmanship.
It is to say, that the songs in this EP are swift, like punches with cushy gloves they have immediate impact but no lasting effect. “Eaters of the Void”, the opener, has throttle. The guitars sound like a revved up motorcycle with roar that has been filtered for hi fi. An upbeat tempo drives and an almost rock and rollish sense drives. The most brutal part of Mordbrand are the vocals of Per Boder. His half growl half bark approach never lets up. It gets distorted after his first line on “Graveyard Revisited”, which by the way, is a song with some nice sped up flashes. The effect on Boder’s voice is funny though. It’s a trick that no one would have thought of as a nice addition to a death metal record just fifteen years ago. It may be a nice touch to some and though the enduring masses that have been into the style for ages may not notice the detail, those that do, will surely smirk. It is in fact very telling of Mordbrand’s ideas of death metal.
The easiest thing to do is to blame the massiveness of underground metal on bands like Mordbrand. It is units like this that have turned extreme metal into a mass ready product. They play it alright, but they embellish it and sugarcoat it. Though that may not translate into massive sales and that may destroy the premise of this last paragraph. Listening to Necropsychotic, one can sense the wild spirits of yore, the brutal encompassing of early Swedish death metal, though the punkish soul that inspired Morbrand’s progenitors is missing. It is there that this record fails; it is totally void of the early’s pungency.
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Written by Bobby Peru
