ALBUM REVIEW: Morgengrau – Blood Oracle

Here is my review for another band I am new to, MORGENGRAU from Texas with their new album of Death Metal.

1. Blood Oracle kicks straight in with old school vibes and a real punch. The atmosphere is really strong and the production excellent. The blast beats over tremolo picked guitar sounds really cool, with thundering bass guitar backing it all up. The vocals sound evil with quite a bit of reverb added to them and some almost Black Metal style added to it. The classic Death Metal style of this song sounds awesome, and the use of a small breakdown goes in the opposite direction gives it a really modern twist. A really cool opening track for sure.
2. Wolves Of Thirteen does not hold back, it is fast and really heavy. The upbeat drumming under layers of dark guitars and bass sound really daunting and brutal. Tons of whammy bar use in the solo giving it a real 80s vibe which I love. The vocals once again rip through hideous layers of grim sounding screams, awesome work.
3. Progression slows things slightly with more Bolt Thrower inspired riffs and more bleak style. The song feels as though it is building up to something very heavy. That something would be really thrashy, old school and aggressive Death Metal. This song sounds absolutely killer, a very different style to the first two and an interesting change in style.
4. Poised At The Precipice Of Doom follows on from the previous track very nicely, starting with a still quite slow pace, the bass sounds so heavy and the tremolo picked riffs creeping in creates a sound used by bands like Deicide. The song is fast, unforgiving and full of great instrumentation and evil vocals which sound really cool due to the double tracking in parts. The guitar and bass hits really hard and the drums just pound away like hell.
5. Forced Exodus is more like track 3, it has that really catchy build up that is unmistakable to the old school sound. The song then drops straight into full speed attack and with gruesome lyrics that work excellently. The ending riffs are so heavy and catchy, it’s wonderful. Everything about this song works so well together, absolutely fantastic work on this one.
6. Invert The Marker kicks in with immediate aggression, the song crawls and torments the listener with a malignant force. Once again as with track 4 it has a strong vibe of Deicide about it, adding this darker and more hectic vibe along with the slower songs gives the album a nice wide spectrum of sounds thus stopping any of them from becoming dull or repetitive.
7. Incipit Bellum has a really creepy sampled intro, building suspense in the album and a sense of unease. It works really nicely before going onto the final track.
8. Evocation Of The Wheel follows the interval with some crashing cymbals and absolutely killer riffs. The song is groovy and melodic but also full of energy. The vocals are really guttural, the riffs are amazing and the drums are played really well with some awesome fills. The use of whammy dives sounds perfect in here. This song is exactly how a Death Metal album should end.

This album fuses together modern and classic Death Metal ideas really well. There is lots of clear influence from many bands I enjoy and the whole thing was a really brutal listen. -7/10