Martwa Aura - Morbus Animus

MARTWA AURA - Morbus Animus (UNDER THE SIGN OF GARAZEL - CD 2020)

Here's a new album, which I am sure will get a deserved strong and positive feedback. I won't be different, I have to say that "Morbus Animus" made a huge impression on me and I certainly think that it's one of the best black metal offerings of recent months, not only here in Poland, but worldwide also. Martwa Aura are not new to me and I do like their previous recordings also, like the recent split with Odour of Death (also released by Under the Sign of Garazel, back in 2019). But with "Morbus Animus" Martwa Aura took another step forward, they again improved and got better, so now we deal with top quality black metal. 

I guess that "Morbus Animus" will be compared to Mgła a lot, and I can partially agree to that. But there's definitely that same feeling, which became common among some more Polish black metal bands of late, not just Mgła. We're speaking of the atmosphere and especially the vocals and the way they're performed and they sound. And obviously lyrics are also in Polish. Martwa Aura fits perfectly into that category, but let's just say they are not new to it anyway, since this is their second full album already. But since "Tenebrae Divine" they took a huge step forward and nowadays sound quite different. And better, not only when speaking of the production quality.  

The music itself is not your common black metal anymore, even though it's so strongly based on the traditions of the genre. But it's far from the primitivism and simplicity of this music, even from its harshness and primeval savagery. Songs are brilliantly composed, full of dynamics, different kind of riffs and moods. There's aggressive and vicious sounding fast stuff, but also a lot of melodic and often melancholic passages, which sound insanely great... Like in "Ostatnia gwiazda", which is such a memorable song, with some amazing harmonies, but also full of angry, ferocious parts, so this one song can become a nice summation of the whole album. The riffing in it almost mesmerizing, especially that very last part, which goes for nearly two minutes and even includes a little bit of clean vocals - it sounds amazing. But hey, the same I can say about such “Ślepowidzenie” for instance...  

All in all, there are five songs here and each is great on its own. I really enjoyed "Morbus Animus" in its every aspect, it’s one of those albums, which you start to listen to and then you play it several times in a row, because it’s just hard to stop. It's infectious, fascinating, it exceeded all my expectations and is just bloody awesome. And I can only recommend it, as certainly it’s gonna be one the most “must have” albums of this year. 

Standout tracks: "Ostatnia gwiazda", “Ślepowidzenie” 

Verdict: 85/100