Friday 28 May 2010

[ALBUM REVIEW] Mörbid Carnage - Night Assassins




“Night Assassins” is the blistering debut from Hungarian thrash outfit 'Morbid Carnage'. Hungary isn't a country known for thrash metal, so how do the Hungarian's fare against the deluge of other new thrash bands around at the minute? Not too shabby at all, to put it bluntly. “Night Assassins” seems a fairly short offering, clocking in at thirty six minutes, but infact only has seven tracks.

Right from the off-set, the band get straight to the point with fast riffing, cut-throat vocals and pedal to the floor drumming, if you're looking for melody and intricate technicality, then you'd be wise to look elsewhere. Overflowing with influence from the teutonic thrash coming out of Germany in the eighties, this is by no means original, as is evident from opener 'Warlust' which bears a heavy resemblance to Kreator, with the frenzied riffs and vocals which could quite easily be Mille Petrozza's. Mid-point the song disintegrates into a breakdown, but this let-up doesn't hang around for long before the intensity picks up again and the song finishes up with an exceptionally groovy riff for which you could be forgiven for nodding along to.
The style of music in the first song is pretty much par for the course for the rest of the album. 'Slaughter' is crammed with cranium nodding riffs, machine gun drumming and malevolent vocals, couple this with the flaying intesnity of 'Funeral Pyre', it's gang vocals and strapping exit riff which could easily be a lost exceprt from 'Pleasure to Kill', any fan of savage thrash will be onto a winner with this. The main problem though with this album is that it remind me so much of the 'classic' thrash metal bands that I said to myself “Sure I'll go and listen to a bit of Sodom or Kreator now”, because what Morbid Carnage make up for in sheer energy, they lack the variety and longevity their hero's possessed. Towards the end of the album it becomes a little tiresome, the blitzkrieg and battery never gives an inch. “Empty Graves” and “Deviant” have the attitude, and they have the riffs, but you can't help but say to yourself “Have I not heard this all before?”. The album does drag quite a bit at points, and none more so than “Castle in Pain”. The main fault with it is that it is far too long, it could quite easily have been sliced in half, shorter, and more to the point. It does contain some decent passages, but these just end up swallowed by the lackadaisical chugging bloating the song. If you want the perfect blueprints as to how to execute a lengthy thrash song well, look no further than Canadian's 'Vektor'. The weakest song on the album without a doubt. The title track caps the album with higher quality at least than the previous song. Shorter, with turbulent riffs, and Slayer-esque sections, and is on a whole very catchy, ending the album on a high note.

The music is right in your face, and 'Morbid Carnage' mean business, there's no denying that, but they could do with broadening their horizions, for for this is a straight up eighties thrash stampede with little originality whatsoever, not that I find that bad, many people prefer that, but if the band want more exposure then it would be a wise move to find more inspiration from elsewhere. One thing I've got to hand to them is that they aren't another Bay Area rip off, as is so common in the current 'thrash revival' which is happening, although it isn't wholly original in any sense, it is still way ahead of the bland, vapid tripe Evile and the likes are producing. I could definitely sit to this and have a few cans, but if for long term playability, it doesn't really hit the spot. One thing's for sure, they get a definite ten out of ten for effort and genuinity. I'd definitely recommend it to fans of Nocturnal, Witchtrap, Hellish Crossfire and the ilk for a listen. One thing to take into consideration for the next album though, change the damn cover art, it's incredibly clichéd, and pretty much just terrible.

65/100

Written for Archaic Magazine

Myspazz

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