Morguiliath is one of the projects of a French Black Metaller called Rats, second album ‘Occult Sins, New Unholy Dimension’ is really evil music. The songs are mostly couched in a slow and medium tempo, they contain accelerations too, but these fast sections rather just add variety to a heavy asphyxiating groove, than reflect the full potential of the band. Craft and Khold jump to mind when you throw yourself at the mercy of the measured yet assertive and anger-packed riffs, while dry and harsh guitar sound coupled with the sandpaper vocals often brings to mind Gorgoroth of the ‘Antichrist’ era.
However, Rats is not a protagonist of the old school, the first 2 songs ‘Pass Away’ and ‘Blåck Peårl’ demonstrate that he uses different guitar techniques and willingly mixes varied styles without causing confrontation. Each song contains a guitar solo or lick, and although none of them can be called ingenious, they are one of the album’s advantages – piercing and groovy, they really catch your attention. ‘Ad Mortem Festinamus’ stands out from the rest of the songs, it’s the most French song on the album, and not only because of the obvious French vocals (additional vocals by Hreidmarr, ex-Anorexia Nervosa), some kind of French recklessness and fatality intertwined with each other sound throughout the song.
In its turn ‘Aborted Inquisition’ is the most forceful song, oppressive and piercing riffs really flattening the listener. ‘Ghouls Sphere’ turns out to be a kind of golden mean between the 2 mentioned songs, additional vocals are performed by Meyhna’ch (ex-Mütiilation, ex-Hell Militia) here. Well, the material on ‘Occult Sins, New Unholy Dimension’ can hardly be called very original, nevertheless, it’s a rather strong move for the French Black Metal scene, which is increasingly dominated by Post-Black Metal.
