Through the Eyes of Death

As I’m from Illinois, Morta Skuld was always a fixture of talk around my parts in the early 90’s since they hailed from right above us in Milwaukee. We always had a lot of banter about this death metal act from cheese town that didn’t exactly give Death, Obituary or even fellow statesmen Morbid Saint a complete run for their money, but they proved a solid act with the 1993 opus Dying Remains, a constant rotator in my early CD spinning days. So imagine my total despair to find out they now play ‘modern’ thrash/nu-metal in some band of which I can’t even recall the name…it’s a shame to see that happen, but it is what it is.

Relapse has issued a definitive collective titled Through the Eyes of the Dead: The Early Demos that houses the band’s Prolong the Agony and Gory Departure demos, which were produced by none other than Death’s manager Eric Greif, and to a brilliantly discernible degree. While anything post As Humanity Fades from ’94 is, at times, a languishing experiment, these two demos showcase just how potent the band was in its earliest form. The chugging riffs and chaotic resonance of the music is precisely what the Swedish death metal movement bestowed upon us just a few years earlier by way of Grave, Edge of Sanity, etc. While Death and the rest of the Floridians possessed a certain ‘lush’ and crisp death metal sound, bands like Morta Skuld kept to the lo-fi, somewhat ‘muffled’ sound of the Scandinavian issuance. That doesn’t and shouldn’t denigrate the music here because not only is this demo collective extremely good in style and songs, its lush remastering has worked wonders. This is one instance where some polish and elbow grease did the recordings a world of infinite good!

When I recall hearing the original demo many years ago I always remember being impressed with the ‘foreign’ sound these guys had for being fellow Midwestern boys. “Feast from Within” and “Gory Departure” were always my two go-to tracks back then, and I included them on many mix tapes I’d make for friends when trying to turn them on to new bands. These demos are some of the band’s better work; they paint a very detailed and bloody picture of a death metal style that, while still detailed and battering from our U.S. contemporaries, brought that potent Swedish sound right back to the front of the lobe. There are moments where you can definitely hear Chuck Schuldiner’s vocal influence, especially in “Feast from Within”, but this is more subjected reverence than pirated inferiority. The switch between guttural moaning/hissing and throaty volatility is so evenly implemented that it’s hard to fathom these guys never went on to bigger avenues. The cover of “Metal Church” they pull off is pretty interesting as well. It puts a new spin on it from every angle and it’s really quite good.

The music is your garden-variety death metal but in all facets a positive. If you take in “Preacher of Lies” or “Senseless Killing” to an unnatural height you’ll find the absolute charm of Morta Skuld. What they might lack in other basic elements they make up for in channeling the exact DM formula and pounding into your head until you can no longer stand from guitar-induced vertigo. I was truly glad to hear these recordings cleaned up so well and I can’t wait to add the CD to my arsenal in the coming weeks.

While you won’t find total serendipity within these tracks, you’ll be treated to a very solid, integral death metal act that sadly left its lineage to the dusts of time and moved on to things they seemingly found more to their individual liking.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

(Originally written for www.metalpsalter.com)

Morta Skuld were one of those Midwestern death metal acts in the 90s that felt like they were really developing a scene to rival New York or Florida, but for whatever reason their albums were lost upon a largely saturated audience. They actually achieved some visibility with releases on Peaceville and Pavement, but to be blunt it was the first two records Dying Remains (1993) and As Humanity Fades (1994) that were their best; by the time Surface rolled around in 1997, they'd devolved into some very average riffing that was more of a step backwards and forwards, and that turned out to be their swan song. With Through the Eyes of Death, a compilation being issued through another high priority label (Relapse), we're offered a collection of their 1990 demos which presumably hearken back to those promising, formative years of development.

The best thing about this is that the tracks are not redundant with either of the old albums, so if you don't already OWN the demos, this will in effect seem like a whole other full-length worth of material. The style is definitely a hybrid of thrash and death, with almost as much in common with a Morbid Saint or earlier Sepultura than its overtly obvious Florida influences. For example, "Preacher of Lies" and "Gory Departure" (from the demo of the same name) sounds like something Death or Obituary would have written in the late 80s. The vocals definitely have a tint of John Tardy, Chuck Schuldiner or Kam Lee to them, but on the second demo Prolong the Agony they are more carnal and heavily spattered with effects. In addition, the riffs there seem more punchy sounding, but they still bear a lot of the same influences. I will say, though, that the demos sound pretty clean for their time, and that alone shows a sense for Morta Skuld's professionalism early on.

What's also cool about Through the Eyes of Death is the inclusion of the band's rare Eternal Suffering single which had been recorded for Earache but never saw the light of day. The titular tune definitely has a sluggish, atmospheric sewer/swamp vibe to it akin to Obituary, albeit more technical and varied in its transitions, and there's also a cover of the classic "Metal Church" cut from the better known American band. It's a great song to choose, and one of the earlier examples I can remember of a band applying the guttural vocals to pure heavy/speed metal, but it did feel a bit flat in spots.

That said, even if I don't quite enjoy the content here as much as Dying Remains, this is pretty much what you want out of a fan compilation. The tunes were tightly written, if not memorable. Unlike that crappy Peaceville release Re-Surface: The Best of Mortal Skuld, this also gives you everything you really want in an orderly, polished fashion, without draining the value of their later studio works, so if you've already got their four full-lengths, the collection is now complete. Non-fans should probably skip this though and make a bee line for the 1993 debut or it's 1994 successor.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com