Mourn the Southern Skies

Another unnecessary album comeback. Well, for many years, Exhorder has gone and gone so many times that at some point it was simply a shame to see a fairly recognized and - in a sense - influential name tarnished by thrash/groove varieties of music. Such numerous turbulences did not stop the Americans completely, because in 2017 they reactivated permanently with the intention of recording new material. After all, only Kyle Thomas and Vinnie LaBella remained from the old line-up, but does it actually change anything? Probably not very much, because considering how many points this comeback album entitled "Mourn The Southern Skies" does not demand, even the reunion of the old line-up in its entirety would not help to look at the third full-length Exhorder with more indulgence.

The point is that a moment after listening to this album, you may have serious doubts whether Exhorder and their new comeback album are actually playing in your player. After the first seconds of "Mourn The Southern Skies", it's easy to think that this is an album that is very reminiscent of the newer Exodus, but in a much worse and grotesque form. Later, there are some (key-word) references to the groove atmosphere and catchiness of "The Law", but they are scattered quite randomly around the album and do not fit well to the thrash metal side of this music. What disgusts me most about "Mourn...", however, is its production and general songwriting, i.e. elements that painfully show the biggest problems that many newer releases from Nuclear Blast suffer from. The sound disturbs the reception with a high concentration of plastic and softness, while compositionally, the band uses the most common clichés in more modern thrash and - generally - widely avoids the brutality.

Where was the spirit of Exhorder in this? - I ask again. Well, you have to analyze a little, but maybe in some riffs (once you get used to artificial production), lyrics (because there are some aggressive words here), in more heavy metal moments (e.g. in "Yesterday's Bones" and the title track) and - first of all - reanimated from the demo re-recording of "Ripping Flesh", which sounds honest and makes sense, referring to the most extreme times for Exhorder. Moreover, even Kyle's vocals turned into very safe, heavy/thrash metal singing, deprived of his charismatic vocals from recordings from the 90s - and I'm leaving aside age issues here. Okay, so as not to criticize, I admit that the title track that closes the whole deserves separate praise. It has the least in common with the band's known style and is the only surprise in this list, but it's worth mentioning. You may like its uplifting mood, references to Black Sabbath and its justified length (great for building tension before the finale). However, there are no more advantages to "Mourn...", and as you can see, they require a lot of effort from the listener.

It's sad to write this from a fan of old Exhorder recordings, but their comeback "Mourn The Southern Skies" meets all the cons associated with the return from beyond the grave of the old, cult name and whose reunion album is released under the Nuclear Blast logo. The result of this album was an extremely over-produced, bland and unengaging.

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal

I had no idea that the band were back together until I saw some news around the media warning the Vatican cardinals to exercise more caution as some old adversary was back in town… and who could that adversary be? But of course the Exhorders! Or rather the Exhorder as from the old line-up it’s only Kyle Thomas who has shown up for another spell with the music industry.

So this is by no means a reunion but is more of an attempt by Thomas to bring his old love back in action. And he has chosen a fairly apt crew for the task teaming up with musicians who have honed their weapons in several renowned veterans (Heathen, Forbidden, Grip Inc., etc.). Sounds like a potential full-on thrash attack… and it surely is, at least for half the time as Thomas can’t possibly completely bypass the band’s staple angry groovy stomps that gave the older material so much character and originality. How do those translate and respectively deliver in the midst of the new millennium, though?

Well, they still do, not exactly in spades but one can do no wrong whatsoever opening with the fiery headbanging winner "My Time", pure old school attack which later finds its match in a few similar rowdy propositions ("Beware The Wolf", "All She Wrote"), and especially on the ripping "Ripping Flesh". In between these high-speed freighters one will certainly encounter less intense groovy pieces among which "Yesterday's Bones" clearly outstays its welcome lasting for whole 7-min without offering much outside the obligatory post-thrashy shenanigans. Still, that last number is hardly an unpardonable mistake; there are no such ones here although "Hallowed Sound" is just a goofy frolic mid-pacer, and "The Arms of Man" is a not very necessary stone-prone wink at Thomas’ other current occupation, Trouble. Mentioning the doom legends, their fans should definitely check out the title-track, thrown at the end but not as an afterthought as its near-10min duration makes it the leader here; length-wise, mind you, as in the music department we have not very perturbed, plain lethargic as well doomy/balladic soundscapes that would have been a fitting epitaph if they were half as long; now swaying in unison for 10-min may as well bring you at the threshold of Hypnos’ realm way before the end.

Yes, there are moments that are a bit debatable with Thomas trying to please a wider gamut of fans, but this should be expected on a comeback release as the man is looking to both satisfy the old and also desirably hook new fanbase. And he should have succeeded although this new opus kind of lacks the character of the previous recordings, not to mention that spontaneity is out of the question, a vital ingredient from the “Slaughter in the Vatican” kitchen, for instance. Thomas has carefully and calculatedly arranged this album, with the different nuances taking turns throughout, with memories of the earlier opuses popping up regularly, making one nod in approval more than just occasionally… but by no means at any overt surprises as such are not that plentiful if we exclude the mentioned doom/stoner references. But even those should be expected, more or less, having in mind Thomas’ still going spell with Trouble.

One thing is for certain, the Vatican cardinals may be lulled to sleep with those slower deviations, and this would surely made them easier to dispatch. Cause this is Thomas’ ultimate agenda, right? To indulge in slaughter without mercy, at the least expected places, with aggro belligerence and youthful old school energy locked in a most combustible marriage.

Man, I can't help but feel that - if this were a debut album from a brand new act - Mourn The Southern Skies would be universally praised and top many year-end lists (much in the same vein as Power Trip back in 2017). However, existing fans of Exhorder simply cannot segregate the Slaughter In The Vatican era from the present day, and - rather unfairly - are expecting Slaughter In The Vatican 2: The Slaughtererning. This is not the same line-up that produced that iconic record over 29 years ago, and it has been a solid 27 since we heard anything from the southern groovesters anyway! After some disappointing comebacks this year (Sacred Reich's Awakening springs to mind) and without mincing words - I can safely say that Exhorder have exceeded all expectations with their 3rd full-length of relentlessly pummelling groove metal.

There was much hate-mongering in the abyssal void that is the YouTube comments section when first single "My Time" was released. Some complained that it wasn't 'groove' enough (understandable); some complained that it wasn't 'thrash' enough (idiotic); and, most perplexingly, some complained about the production quality! "My Time" is a cracking firebomb of an opener which takes a laughably contrived lyric like 'I don't give a fuck' and makes it totally convincing. The sheer force behind these riffs, these thrashed-up rhythms and these harrowing vocals is enough to convince anyone that not a fuck do they give. Upon the release of the second single, "Hallowed Sound", many naysayers were silenced. This was the kind of groove-based riff-monster Exhorder were lauded for. The strength of this record is evident in how "Hallowed Sound" was initially one of my favourite songs of the year, but was overtaken by almost every other track on Mourn....

After such a massive hiatus/coma, it means a great deal that the New Orleans quintet delivered both quality and quantity. 52 minutes of stormingly heavy, yet maturely written, groove metal laden with that southern blues vibe and a mega impressive vocal performance from Kyle Thomas. Despite Kyle and Vinnie being the only OG members, they both sound like they're fired up as hell and ready to take on the fucking world. The new additions in the rhythm section inject this LP with the youthful vibrancy required to make tracks like "My Time", "Beware The Wolf" and "Ripping Flesh" work. The production quality is stellar. I've heard a lot of groove/thrash this year, and this utterly annihilates the competition with pure bone-crunching power. The album's slower moments, like the hefty "Yesterday's Bones" or the epic title-track make the most of this neck-breaking heaviness. Every strum, every cymbal crash - especially in the latter - feels like a hammer-blow to the face.

Mourn The Southern Skies is structured beautifully; the up-tempo thrashers sprinkled sparingly between walls of rumbling groove-based tracks. Take the second half for example: the shuffling bulldozer of "All She Wrote" is followed by the relentlessly groovy "Rumination", the menacing crawl of "The Arms Of Man", the completely batshit "Ripping Flesh", then the mammoth quagmire of the title-track. There are so many highlights because every track delivers something new. Do I flip out about the 'WOLVES! WILL! STALK!' chorus of "Beware The Wolf"? The ultra-catchy refrain of "Asunder"? The neck-snapping breakdown of "All She Wrote?" Answer: all of it. I flip out about all of it. This isn't just one of the best groove/thrash albums of 2019, this is one of the best metal albums of 2019, period. After a nearly 3-decade sleep, Exhorder are back and ripping flesh - ripping flesh from the bone!

I wasn’t even born when Exhorder released their previous album, so I begin writing this review without an established love for this band’s much-talked-about legacy, although I am thoroughly familiar with the cult-like fanaticism they inspire in their rabid fan-base. I had, of course, heard much about how they apparently invented groove metal; I had even listened to a few songs from their first two albums. But I had never really paid much attention to their music, and even the little familiarity I had with them was rather unintentional. For all practical purposes, then, this album may as well have been their debut release, at least to me.

I say this without one whit of exaggeration, but as far as I am concerned, Mourn the Southern Skies is the heavy-metal event of the year, and the more I listen to it, the more I am tempted to replace ‘year’ with ‘decade’ in that assessment. I have played the album in its entirety about 50 times since its release a week or so ago, and the dopamine rush my brains secretes gets more intense each time I play it. The devil’s cum, they say, is always hiding in the detail: the more familiar I become with the songs of Mourn, the more the subtleties come to the fore and the more the songs come to life. I begin to “hear between the seconds,” so to speak.

It isn’t just the subtle riff-and-cymbal delicacies that make this album great, however. The meat of this album is their no-bullshit approach to songwriting that vividly captures—both lyrically and musically—the frustrations of a middle-class life, the folklore and unique atmosphere of New Orleans, LA, and the generally aggressive mood of thrashaholics seeking to blow off some steam at the end of a workday. There is a thoughtful balance of songs with different tempos: from Ripping Flesh, which is one of the most violent thrash metal songs I’ve ever heard, up there with Morbid Saint’s Spectrum of Death in terms of its blistering intensity; to the more laid-back title track with its catchy chorus; and every tempo in between. Nothing is overcooked, nothing is repeated. Even the songs with skank beats have a unique character to them, which is especially hard to achieve in thrash metal (Metallica avoided writing more than a couple of songs per album with skank beats in their early career precisely because they tend to monotonize the tenor of the entire album; this album has four songs with some variation of skank beats and still manages to avoid monotony). And finally, the guitar solos, oh, the guitar solos—they are about as orgasmic as the best sex you’ve had.

The drum work on All She Wrote deserves a special mention because that particular trick is something I’ve never heard before. Every few seconds it sounds like a bunch of tennis balls were dropped—from nearly but not precisely the same height—on the bass drum held horizontally. This is one of the most creative sections of the whole album.

Nearly every song in Mourn elicits the same response from me: that this is the flawless album I’ve waited so long to hear, without even realizing that I was waiting for it. It boggles my mind that Exhorder was sitting on this goldmine for 27 years, and it boggles my mind even more that these folks can play such intense, savage thrash/groove metal at the age of almost 50! I believe they have deliberately made the production quality of Mourn different from The Law, to prevent unnecessary comparisons with Pantera—so that they don’t have to explain to Exhorder-n00bs like me every few days that, no, Exhorder is not trying to imitate Pantera; if anything, it was the other way round, a sentiment which, as I understand, the band is indifferent to. Kyle Thomas has also stated that he has always regretted not having captured the tone of their 1987 demo Slaughter in the Vatican in any of Exhorder's subsequent releases, and that he was trying to aim for that tone in Mourn. Maybe. I haven't heard that demo yet.

Vinnie LaBella said in an interview recently that with each new album they try to do something different, something new, without offsetting their signature style too much, which tells me not to expect the exact same kind of songwriting in their two previous albums when I do decide to dive into them. He and Kyle also said, probably in the same interview, that they will try to involve other members of the band in the songwriting process in future albums, which immediately put a smile on my face: there will be more albums to come! All I can to that is…I await, “under the southern skies begging, like a child awaiting a flashing of light.”

My absolute favorite track from the album: Asunder. That song will murder me someday.