Morvigor - Tyrant

MORVIGOR - Tyrant (Self financed CD 2017)

Couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a band called Morvigor and asked if I would like to review their recently released album "Tyrant". Because I never heard of this band before, I decided to check one song first before giving them an answer. But this one song was enough for me to decide and say "yes". Finally one day a nice, professionally printed, yet self-released, digipak arrived... and I have to say that I've been playing "Tyrant" at least twenty times or even more and I really, really enjoy this album. This is just very good stuff and very pleasant surprise, especially because it came from completely unknown band and - judging by the photographs - rather young musicians. But I like such tasty surprises! 

What Morvigor plays is some sort of black metal hybrid, strongly mixed with melodic death metal and even in few parts like the fantastic "Blood of the Pelican" with post metal. Not sure, if in this case the word "Pelican" is accidental or not though haha (to those, who have no idea - Pelican are one of the best bands, who play instrumental post rock / metal; fantastic band). Well, on "Tyrant" it feels like every song is a surprise and brings something different. Four tracks are kind of instrumental passages, which glue everything together, so it even feels like you've been listening to one, 47 minutes long song. Another four tracks are much longer (the mentioned "Blood of the Pelican" is almost 16 minutes long!) and as I already said, each is just different.  

"No Repentance" is probably the most aggressive and angry track, it has nice vicious feel, even some blasting sections, so it's just a hard kick. Yet it can also surprise with the clean vocals section, so it's nicely varied and composed. It smoothly calms down for "The Martyr's Ascension" to come. This song begins with a sort of melancholic passage, which quickly builds the atmosphere and half way through the song opens the door to quite melodic and easily listenable, almost catchy black / death metal, played in slightly Swedish vein. "Blood of the Pelican", which I already mentioned twice in this review, is a fantastic journey, which really sounds like post metal piece in the opening part - and I have to say that I love that playing, which this song starts with. It's very atmospheric, slightly sorrowful maybe, but damn... it sounds so good. But all of a sudden, this song transforms into killer black metal, which personally reminds me some of the recent Helheim albums. Great cold, vicious playing, very good riffs, arrangements and vocals. Definitely a superb song and the most impressive part of "Tyrant". Finally the title track concludes everything... very similar to "No Repentance", also sometimes blasting like crazy, also with some clean vocals (which almost sound like Vortex from Borknagar!)... it's almost a twin brother to the first song. And a fine ending to the whole album. 

Yeah... I can say anything, but not that Morvigor plays orthodox and conventional black / death metal. They may not be the most original band on the planet, yet they have great idea for their music and talent to compose it. This album surprised me a lot, impressed even more... and well, I can only speak in super positive words about it. 

Standout track: "Blood of the Pelican" 

Verdict: 80/100