ALBUM REVIEW: Burning The Mortal Coil – Severe Lacerations
Although Cumbria is an area of the UK that has become famed for its excellent, tightly knit black metal scene over the last few years, it’s got more than its fair share of excellent death metal acts too. One of the region’s longest standing acts are SEVERE LACERATIONS who, although they have been operating under that name since 2005, have performed under different monikers as far back as 1998. Although the band didn’t release any records until their Incantation Of Sorrow demo in 2015, this, along with the EP that came after it – 2022’s Death Is The Shepherd Of Mankind – has garnered the Millom based quartet a sizeable following across the North. Their long-awaited debut album, Burning The Mortal Coil, sees the band’s brand of classic death metal take on a much broader sound than that of their earlier work, with the result being a varied record that is more than worth the wait.
Memento Mori, a short instrumental introduction, provides a haunting, minimalist start to proceedings that sets an ominous tone. This is followed by the first proper track Terror Signal, a song with a dense, military gallop, chunky guitars, authoritative drums and throaty vocals, with the music quickly shifting to a slicker, more groove-laden sound that is tinged with chaotic flourishes, tempering the weighty undercurrent and making for a solid, energetic slab of death thrash that immediately draws the listener in. Immutable adopts angular leads and tighter, more punk-inflected drumming, lending this a starker, more primitive sound with a less animated approach. It remains firmly rooted within OSDM musically, with meaty rhythms and dense vocals particularly adding a darker feel to the guitars and drums.
Unholy Revenge is another rumbling juggernaut with thunderous drums and clanging bass creating a powerful backdrop to punchy, spartan guitar work and domineering gutturals, making for a focused and catchy take on the style of death metal that was present on the first two tracks, without sacrificing any of the venom-soaked edge. Red Wraith, with its darker leads and harsher undercurrent, acts as a far bleaker offering, with the slower, more brooding moments and ferocious growls crafting a dramatic feel as the band pepper in some doom-laden elements and a sombre, wailing guitar solo to sound far more melancholic.
The album’s second half kicks off with Subjugation, a lengthier affair which initially moves at a funereal pace, carrying forward the measured sound of the previous song before gradually cranking into a faster tempo. It hints at the cacophonous sound present on a track like Terror Signal without ever fully embracing it, instead ebbing and flowing between ponderous sections and mid-paced ones and making this longer track work effectively. Atavistic takes on a frenetic and urgent sound, delivering on the intensity that the previous song was edging towards. The coarser, more discordant guitars and bestial vocals makes this feel visceral, although there’s not much to differentiate it from the rest, with the exception of the searing, claustrophobic guitars which make this a lot more imposing.
To Kill – a short, sharp shock of an offering – couples weighty, rhythmic guitars with punishing percussion and monstrous vocals, shifting to a denser approach that works incredibly well, but doesn’t possess a lot of riffs, resulting in a solid but fairly subdued slab of death metal. Burning The Mortal Coil sees the dissonance and feral tempo changes that informed songs like Atavistic explored in greater depth, with everything sounding extremely caustic from start to finish. It remains squarely within OSDM whilst altering to a significantly harsher and livelier style, bringing things to a head on arguably one of the album’s strongest numbers.
On the surface, Burning The Mortal Coil is an incredibly solid slab of old school death metal that, like a lot of records, draws influence from the past and does a commendable job of paying homage to that style without wearing its key influences too prominently on its sleeve, but if you pay attention to the nuances of individual tracks, there’s a lot more going on here. Where a lot of albums in this style tend to find a style and a pace and stick within it, SEVERE LACERATIONS have incorporated touches of everything from death thrash to bits of doom and black metal into the mix, with quite a lot of the songs having an emotive range beyond just aggression that makes this a more eclectic record. It may have taken the band close to two decades to finally put this album out, but it has been well worth the wait, and hopefully, with the band recording more material in quick succession in the last couple of years, the wait for album number two won’t be anywhere near as long.
Rating: 8/10
Burning The Mortal Coil is out now via self-release.
Like SEVERE LACERATIONS on Facebook.