This Finnish act has been ascending in the ranks of the new wave of old school death metal and by no accident, as they have a really good grasp on the visuals and the music, proving it with their debut Ominous Seep of Putridity last year. Their split with Anatomia was also decent, so there were no signs of immediate malfunctions for Morbific, who build up on their first work with a very similar minded record, Squirm Beyond the Mortal Realm. Everything seems to be in its proper place once again, and the band does perform to its expected standards, providing material that is full of crawling, heavy grooves, painful growls, violent lyrical themes and a healthy dose of brutality one would hope to receive from such albums. Morbific are not master composers and not the filthiest of death metal practicians that you could find, yet they at least stand well on their feet when it comes to the compositional part of Squirm Beyond... The biggest issue of the record though, one that ruins the listen for me, is this obnoxious production. There is a constant amount of noise that, even if it comes or doesn't come from an instrument, actively damages the outcome. The drums are completely buried and every instrument sounds cut off from the rest of the instrumentation. The vocals are sometimes too silent and generally, the record's audio is simply smashed. Most of the actual material is enjoyable even if sometimes, middle paced guitar lines are repeated too much and make the tracks a bit frail (the longer ones especially have that problem). It sounds like when you watch Morbific perform these tracks live, they will definitely sound different, so the studio editing unfortunately had a negative impact on the outcome of this record. Still, this cover is really great, and there are a handful of nice moments here which death metal fans will dig, if they don't mind its production. [2.5/5 - Average]
Your point makes sense, I still liked it!
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