The Blueprint for Blood Spatter

As the old saying goes, you just can't keep a good corpse down. As such, after more than 2 decades in the business of transmogrifying cadavers by way of lyrical and musical bludgeoning, Mortal Decay has not allowed a constant flux of differing bassists and vocalists keep them from consistently butchering the unsuspecting listener. They had gotten a little bit off their game back in 2006 with the release of Cadaver Art, which was a somewhat pedestrian attempt at playing up the old school Cannibal Corpse influences that this band exhibited during their mid 90s demo period. But with yet another front man in Danny Nelson who is best known for his extended tenure with the more modernized brutalizing death metal machine Malignancy, this band of New Jersey ghouls are undeterred at continuing down the decrepit path of death metal evolution.

The significance of the addition of the aforementioned Malignancy front man goes beyond the vocal realm, as this outfit's latest opus dubbed The Blueprint For Blood Splatter exhibits a level of technically tinged modernity that is a bit out of character for its older brand, though not so for the vocalist's main project. This goes beyond the section-specific noodling typical to Dying Fetus or Suffocation and takes on an almost jazzy character at times, not all that dissimilar from recent output from the likes Revocation, Arsis, Nile, and a number of other bands that exhibit more of a progressive character. This is particularly noticeable on the more convoluted yet short-winded songs such as "Nocuous Compulsions" and "Altruistic Masochism" where the guitar shredding and funky bass interludes almost morph this thing into a progressive metal excursion.

To put it plainly, this is an album that puts such a heavy emphasis on technique and variation that at times it jumps clean out of traditional death metal conventions and lands in a variety of places normally associated with acts that have sprung up in the past 10 years. Much of this can be accredited to Nelson's vocal display, which fits into the multiple personality mode that is common in modern bands where a simply guttural bark after the Chris Barnes or Frank Mullen mode isn't sufficient, and has to be complemented with high-pitched shrieks and inhuman mutterings that share about as much in common with Lord Worm's pioneering work than otherwise. The instrumental work caters to the multifaceted vocals by correspondingly shifting rhythm and feel in rapid succession, often incorporating blast beats, but almost as often landing in off-beat grooves and tiny thrash bursts that leave about as quickly as they arrive.

For all the intrigue and effort that went into this extremely ambitious collection of songs, it falls a bit short of truly capitalizing on its bold stylistic adventurism and just crams a lot of ideas into otherwise bite-size songs. For all the notes, contrasting sections and busy songwriting, this album comes off as quite short and not quite fulfilled. Consequently, the songs wow the ears at first sting, but then struggle to hold one's attention and really carve out a lasting impression. At a few points such as the overtly blast dominated quickie "Deviant" and much of "Blueprint" the riff flavor becomes almost deathcore-like, despite the lack of hardcore infused vocal work. It's an album that will probably have greater appeal to the younger generation of death metal adherents that go for lots of notes and aggression with little symmetry to the songwriting, but one that will probably not seal the deal with the band's core older school audience. It's a decent album, but it pales to the innovative and less derivative while still discernible character of Forensic. Cut open the corpse Sal, but mind the festering parasites.