Morbid Vision - Visions of the Morbid Rites / Demonstration of Force 92/91

MORBID VISION - Visions of the Morbid Rites / Demonstration of Force 92/91 (THRASHING MADNESS - CD 2014)

Another compilation of old demo recordings from Thrashing Madness. And this one actually quite surprised me, as I can’t remember if I have ever heard about Morbid Vision before?? Maybe I’ve read some reviews of their demos back in the early 90’s, but I’m not even sure about that and more so, I am certain that I’ve never heard their music nor even seen a cassette anywhere. So it truly is a rare piece of death metal, which Necronosferatus managed to exhume from the old crypt. Cool, I suppose; it’s always a nice thing to have a chance to hear some old, many years forgotten tunes of death! In case of Morbid Vision we have two demos here: "Visions of the Morbid Rites" (1992, originally released on cassette by Baron Records, but I really can’t remember ever seeing this tape!) and "Demonstration of Force" (1991) plus two songs from the unreleased demo 1992. The band was active between 1990-93 and managed to record just these three materials and this CD has them all. Obviously the booklet contains a detailed history of the band, which I have read with great interest, finding out all I should know about Morbid Vision… More so, there are also lyrics and quite few photographs, scans, so everything what should be on such compilation!

Now, as for the music… I can’t say that Morbid Vision was something special. No, it was quite mediocre band, I suppose and definitely they were not as good as the best Polish death metal acts from the early 90’s. But even if both demos show a total mediocrity (but not poorness!), they kind of managed to entertain me anyway. I suppose that two things made me like this compilation: one is the pure curiosity for everything old and death metal. The more unknown band and demo, the better… And secondly, it would probably be the fact that these songs survived all these years, someone gave them a second life releasing the CD and somehow it is simply cool to listen to such ancient artefacts. These demos, even if are not as good as “Necromantical Exmortis”, “Dead Condemnation”, “Invisible Reality”, “Clairvoyant” or “Superior Ignotum” (to bring just few titles from the old days), are still good enough and besides, even if today we have so many so called old school bands, then none really sounds like Morbid Vision back in 1992. And the more I listen to this compilation, the more I like it, especially "Visions of the Morbid Rites" demo, which is really damn cool.

Musically Morbid Vision was typical death metal band of the early 90’s, blending some vicious, fast and aggressive death metal with a lot of German thrash metal. Bands like Pestilence and Protector must have had a huge impact on the creators of "Visions of the Morbid Rites"! The riffing is often coarse and slightly archaic, so is the production on both demos (“Demonstration of Force” especially), but it doesn’t disturb really. I like many of these thrashing riffs, the demonic vocals on "Visions of the Morbid Rites" are just fantastic… And there are many songs, which I just think are great, like for example “Morbid Vision”, “Thanatophobia”, “N.D.O.” and the opening song “Open the Mirror”. Mostly it’s the demo 1992, which I liked, but “Demonstration of Force” is pretty cool, I guess. As I already wrote, nothing truly exceptional, but solid and quality stuff anyway. And damn, I just recommend you getting this CD, as it’s just really cool to listen to such old stuff.

Final rate: 70/100