ALBUM REVIEW: La España Negra – Morta
Spain is one of the many countries that sadly get overlooked when it comes to black metal, which is a shame, because the vast majority of bands that have emerged from there are almost exclusively amazing, from the searing blackened death of TEITANBLOOD to the criminally underrated blackened psychedelic sound of BALMOG. For this reason, there’s a lot of excellent underground acts that don’t get the attention and praise their Northern European counterparts often take for granted. MORTA are one such band, an act that blends together black and war metal elements together in a way that is impressive and captivating in its twisting of the expectations of both styles. The band’s debut album, La España Negra, is a brilliant start, consolidating and refining the sound laid down on their 2017 demo and 2020’s Fúnebre EP, with the end result being an exceptionally tight and diverse record that is bellicose and punchy in equal measure.
Requiem Por Una España Fragmentada, a short but haunting instrumental piece, sets a dark and ominous tone for the rest of the album before launching headlong into La Caída De Los Infieles, a track that couples chaotic drums and buzz-saw guitars with coarse and throaty vocals. It’s a harsh and rabid slab of black metal that pairs the intensity of war metal with the raw and unpolished mix of classic black metal for ferocious and claustrophobic results. La Fé Impura De Un Futuro Envuelto En Llamas begins as a slower, more rhythmic version of the style prevalent on the previous song, turning the muscular guitars and steadier pace into a bleak yet imposing offering that quickly morphs into a far more grating and aggressive song that again pairs cacophony with dense, punishing flourishes, with the vocals especially carving through the mix and adding a demented quality to proceedings.
La Muerte Santa takes the weighty, punk-inflected edge of the music so far and applies a sharper and more focused side to it, with the music being noticeably tighter and the mix being just that tiny bit clearer, allowing the slicker, melodic moments within this song’s sound to rise to the surface, pushing through the frenetic parts with ease and providing what is arguably one of the catchier numbers on the album so far, favouring the punchier passages just as much as its atonal ones. The brief instrumental interlude of Leyenda Negra Del Tiempo, much like the album’s opener, brilliantly draws the emphasis away from bestial black metal and accentuates the dramatic side of the band’s sound, with soaring, acoustic guitars and shimmering ambience perfectly breaking up the album whilst preparing the listener for what’s to come.
Mi Invierno Eterno is a lot closer in sound and style to the biting melodicism and caustic fills of La Muerte Santa, whilst making space for fast, thrashing punk hooks and rumbling gutturals. It takes the best components of its predecessor and makes it even more eclectic in its musical depth, turning this into easily one of the album’s most diverse affairs. Estigia, with its energetic riffs, thunderous drums and roaring vocal deliveries, is another incredibly catchy and powerful high point with some fantastic, memorable leads and an atmospheric undercurrent all contributing to one of the most imaginative and even grand efforts on the whole album, without straying outside of the realms of pure black metal.
Transustanciación Diabólica, although definitely a sinister and domineering track in its own right, with feral bursts of brutality and arid vocals, feels a little bit anti-climactic after the magnificence of the last track, and adopts a much more hypnotic take on the war/black metal combo the band is so good at, which helps wind the album down slowly as opposed to making one final lurch for the jugular.
It’s really hard to find new ways to make a genre as well-established and bogged down with expectation as classic black metal feel fresh and exciting sometimes, but MORTA have certainly managed to do a great job of it with La España Negra. A lot of this album’s strengths lie in the way the black and war metal sides of the band’s sound are balanced, never allowing one side to dominate, and introducing polished melodies to add a catchy flourish when the music warrants it, without overdoing it. It blends both the genres’ intense and accessible sides in a way that very few bands are able to, and is an impressive slab of blackened death metal that will hopefully be just the start of a lot of great records from this thoroughly brilliant band.
Rating: 8/10
La España Negra is out now via Signal Rex.
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