Witching Hour Productions, 2011
Genre: Black Metal
1. Receiving the Impurity of Jeh
2. The Knell
If you follow the Polish scene at all I imagine Deus Mortem would be a tough act to miss with such prolific musicians behind it. This has Necrosodom (just called N.) from Anima Damnata/Thunderbolt/Azarath and this is a project where he basically gets to write everything. Who did he ask to drum for him? None other than Inferno of Behemoth/Azarath fame and a mastermind behind the kit. I think Necrosodom is a lot like M. from Kriegsmaschine for me... every project he gets involved with seems to turn incredible. My favorite musical pieces from Thunderbolt are really after he got involved. I love the direction Azarath is heading now that he's involved and I wasn't as into them before. It's like when Arioch got involved with Marduk, my interest in that project was waning, but now I like them quite a bit with that fresh spin on their sound. Necrosodom does this for projects in his country and he writes in a particular way that I really appreciate and gravitate towards.
Naturally with such prolific musicians behind the project I had rather high expectations for the writing and recording. Deus Mortem certainly deliver. They have released a spectacular and sinister sounding Ep. Based on the members CV I wouldn't have guessed they would put this out, since most of the projects have always had some level of Death Metal in them. Deus Mortem is absolutely pure Black Metal through and through. I certainly hear some of the guitar playing structure I heard in the last Thunderbolt release, which certainly is not a complaint. I would say there is a lot of Watain influence in this if I hadn't heard Thunderbolt, but I think that is just a natural style for that musician. However, if you want to get an idea of the sound it is similar to Watain to some degree. The big difference being that I think this is what I wanted the follow-up to "Sworn to the Dark" to sound like, but never got in "Lawless Darkness". In that regard Deus Mortem is pushing that sound and doing better with it, in my opinion. We only have two tracks to go off of here and I certainly hope they are an indicator of an imminent full-length in the future.
The recording quality is naturally perfect. I really like hearing Inferno behind an acoustic. Frankly, it's so much better than Behemoth's sound and I really wish he would switch back to an all acoustic kit. The drums are just so thunderous in this production, almost akin to "De Mysteriis dom Sathanas" in production value. The reverberations from everything just bleeds into each part of the kit beautifully. The vocal performance is extremely good and you can see why N. is often chosen to do vocals for bands he is involved with. I find he has quite a good range and the clean section sounds simply haunting in "Receiving the Impurity of Jeh."
A lot to say about two tracks, but this great Black Metal. I really hope they do a full length soon, because two tracks of this caliber of material is simply not enough. The compositions have a rather immersive quality, like one would find in Kriegsmaschine or Mgła, so only two tracks is not enough to get fully immersed into their sound. We need more from this project!
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