An extensive promotional package accompanied the album ‘Damned After Dying’ by the Belgian Mortifer, which surely made me very curious about the music the band themselves describe as ‘Symphonic Horror Metal’. Weird description?
Maybe, but after I listened to the CD extensively, the description has a striking truth to it. The music the four Belgians have created is a well-done mixture of a number of influences that include Doom, Gothic and Black Metal. Most of the guitar work is Black Metal-oriented, with guitar riffs that often remind me of bands such as Dissection and (old) Moonspell. The latter is something that comes to mind in two other aspects: the atmosphere and the vocals.
First, the atmosphere the band creates is very doomy, with a lot of melodic touches that sometimes push the band towards the gothic genre. This atmosphere breathes Moonspell all over. Quite a compliment, since this is the first band ever that I have “awarded” such a comparison!
The second aspect is the vocals, which come in a creepy and very filthy flavour, and a very well-executed clean flavour. Especially the clean vocals deserve a compliment, since they are exceptionally good and enhance the solid feeling of the music.
My conclusion is that Mortifer (est. 1996) has delivered a great debut. This hasn’t been an easy task since the band has chosen a difficult position for themselves; combining such a wide range of influences is interesting but is surely not appealing to every Metal fan. But the band has succeeded with this heavy burden and come out with a well-written and well-performed album that should appeal to fans of each aforementioned genre. The impressive number of gigs in the past and future, combined with this superb album, gives me no doubt whatsoever of the potency of Mortifer!
