
Some bands still arouse a kind of youthful enthusiasm in me. But, honestly, there are fewer and fewer of them. That may have to do with my increasingly frightening age, but be that as it may, it seems to me that many older bands have now lost their magic or are at least half asleep. Certainly none of that is the case with Deceased, although this band’s roots go as deep as 1984, this is a textbook example of a band that is still only getting better with every release and every year.
Although Deceased was never much of a standard Death Metal band to begin with, the band gradually incorporated more elements from outside the typical Death Metal soundscape. With Thrash Metal being a vital part of early Death Metal Deceased never abandoned these roots, but anyone who has heard at least one of the band’s releases since, roughly, the late 90’s must have heard King Fowley’s love for classic Hardrock and Heavy Metal evidently started to shine through.
If Fowley, the founder and inspirer of Deceased, is anything, it is a metalhead at heart. His deep-rooted love for Heavy Metal is not only increasingly evident in the general Deceased sound, but the many compilations, live recordings and odd short players are packed with covers of all kinds of bands. He is also invariably photographed in the most fantastic band shirts. Not surprisingly, Deceased is slowly but surely becoming more and more a Heavy Metal band, leaving its Death Metal and Thrash Metal roots increasingly behind.
‘Children Of The Morgue’ is yet another incontrovertible proof of that thesis. Its predecessor, 2018’s fantastic ‘Ghostly White’ (let’s forget about the two albums filled with covers) showed another firm step in the consummation of the Heavy Metal metamorphosis. In fact, it is hard to maintain that Deceased is still a Death Metal band, the only thing that still has some echo from those early days of the band are Fowley’s roaring vocals. Other than that, we have been treated to fantastic riffs, catchy leads and epic song writing for several years now.
New to the mix are the obvious Doom Metal influences, although they have popped up here and there in the past, they are now much more prominent on ‘Children Of The Morgue’ and even form an elemental part of the album. The opening riff in the short, instrumental opener immediately sets the tone and this doomy slant returns regularly throughout the album, the main riff in ‘Turn To Wither’ is a good example of this, it would certainly not have been out of place on an album of Iron Void or Count Raven, for instance. What is another big step in the further perfection of Deceased’s musical blueprint is that the songs form a much stronger cohesion. Regarding some of the previous albums, it can be said that they had a somewhat unsteady character here and there. Despite the often conceptual content, not every album had enough meat on its bones to sound very connected. The musical transition will surely have something to do with this, but also the band’s tendency to deliver long songs and equally long albums have not done any good in this regard.
With just under an hour of playing time, ‘Children Of The Morgue’ is another long album. While I still prefer an album that lasts at least some 20 minutes less, this latest work from Deceased does not necessarily feel like a helluva long session. The recurring musical themes and good leads provide enough guidance to ride it all the way out and even to put it on again later – not insignificantly.
The fact that Deceased has always been a bit of a lull, never qualifying for the big awards and grammy shows, has undoubtedly contributed to the atmosphere surrounding the band. In sincerity and tenacity to the values of the metal genre, there are few equals to Deceased and ‘Children Of The Morgue’ is yet another undead testimony to that.
Deceased
- Country: USA
- Style: Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal
- Links: Facebook, Spotify
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Hells Headbangers Records
- Country: USA
- Style: Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Other
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Youtube