MALFEITOR - Dum Morior Orior (HELLTHRASHER Productions - CD 2012)
The Malfeitor entity came into existence
(supposedly) already back in 1990, but I guess this time until 1995, when the
first incarnation of the band has split up, have never fruited in demo
recordings, so it doesn’t really matter. When Benny Moberg started Blood
Mortized in 2007 he also decided soon later to reform Malfeitor, for whatever
reasons. I do must admit that the debut demo, “To Hell, Farewell”, from 2011 –
which later was released on CD as a split with Birch Mountain – hasn’t
impressed me that much and it was rather mediocre quality Swedish sounding
death metal. Therefore I didn’t really feel like “Dum Morior Orior” would be an
album that I’ll get interested in. Well, Hellthrasher Productions helped with
it, by making sure that I review it, so here I am, sitting in front of the
laptop and listening to those Swedish zombies at 1:15 am.
I must admit that my first impression on “Dum
Morior Orior” was very mixed. At the beginning I was quite sceptic about the
band and also on the first listen I really thought that this is yet another old
styled Swedish death metal album, but one of very mediocre quality and
basically one, which do not bring anything exciting to already very exciting
scene, so I was more eager to skip it than really bother to listen to it more.
But I did against that and kept on listening to “Dum Morior Orior” and I think
I should be glad about that as I started to like Malfeitor more with every new
listening. It’s almost weird that something like this happened, because “Dum
Morior Orior” is not a demanding album and with such LPs you usually get into
them immediately or not at all and then just leave them behind. Maybe it had
something to do with the equipment on which I listened to Malfeitor, as at
first I listened to it on quite old and shitty headphones, but later I putted the
album on my big stereo system and finally Malfeitor’s music got some aggression
and brutal energy which I felt was lacking at first. This is when I really
discovered the potential and awesomeness of this band.
When “Conversation in Minor” kicked off with
first riffs, it was like a bomb, which exploded right in your face. And next
tracks, like the impressively catchy, but fast as hell “Beyond the Horrorizon”
and brilliant groovy horror anthem called “To Hell, Farewell” just carried on
doing the slaughter, which I welcomed with opened arms and all my knives and
axes sharp and ready to massacre. Malfeitor plays some really killer and
devastating tracks here and so “Dum Morior Orior” is truly a blast. Of course
there may be discussions whether it’s any point to listen to yet another band
like Malfeitor… because I’m not gonna lie to you. Malfeitor is not original at
all and their music pretty much repeats what dozens of other bands have done
earlier. There are also few new bands from the new wave of old school death
metal, which I think are better than Malfeitor – I can think of Interment, Tormented,
Intestinal, Entrails, Graveyard, Torture Division just to name few really. But who
cares, if “Dum Morior Orior” is still so cool and skin bashing? Malfeitor has
really solid songwriting, good performance, the productions is OK here also, so
I can’t see any reasons why “Dum Morior Orior” should not be in the collections
of all die hard death metal maniacs out there! Trust me; these are some really
killer 40 minutes, which will be a real feast for enthusiasts of the Swedish
style and the likes of Entombed, Grave, Torture Division, General Surgery, Facebreaker.
What I like about “Dum Morior Orior” especially is that how often it is fast,
how uncompromising and aggressive (sometimes even grinding) this album is, but
still with many memorable and catchy parts, and that in all that blasting
ferocity Malfeitor did not forget about some melodies or even doomy parts. In the
end I think that “Dum Morior Orior” has everything what such musical genre as old
school Swedish death metal should have. Really cool, yeah! I like it!
Standout tracks: “Conversation in Minor”, “Beyond
the Horrorizon”, “To Hell, Farewell”, "And the Sky Turn to Rage", "Exile From Sanity"
Final rate: 80/100
No comments:
Post a Comment