Greetings from Hell

As a Dutch band active in the early 1990s, Mourning probably had a shot at becoming something big in the death doom world, but eventually they faded after releasing just one full-length. It seems fitting that Terror from Hell Records are giving Greetings from Hell another chance, since surely label and album dwell in the same regions. The extent of the re-release gives the 30 year old recording a remaster, new packaging on the CD, and 5 additional songs for fans to savour. Admittedly, the bonus tracks leave a little to be desired compared to the original 46 minute album, what with one of them being a kind of sequel to ‘Get AIDS and Die’ and the rest mainly focusing on the punkier side of Mourning’s unusual approach.

Indeed, it was always difficult to place the trio (2 of whom have passed away in the last decade) among the death doom movement of their time, since they sound like hateful underground death metal zombies, sort of like if Nihilist had heard Winter early in their career and never identified a signature guitar tone. The dual pacing of Greetings from Hell reflects the situation that Asphyx passed through in their formative years, though the warbling bass and strong mids sound of the guitar give Mourning both a sinister menace at slow speeds and a ragged energy at faster moments. A snarling, anti-social delivery makes lyrics like “What you smell is the smell of my shit…This is my territory, so piss off you fools” carry the same energy as the instrumentals.

Effectively, Mourning just uses doom as a means to make their music sound difficult and desolate, thinning out the sound for slow chord progressions early in 'Sweet Dreams' before motoring into more comfortable tremolo riffs and double bass. Given that they modulate that into punky chords and groovier manifestations of the same riff for the following 'Death's Dance', it's easy to understand that nothing really stays fixed, with each song also being broken into many small sections with awkward shifts in pace and feel between them, only united by the disturbing sonic settings. That makes a listen to Mourning a unique experience, but not terribly enjoyable. Even a timely reissue like this may not be enough to validate classic status for Greetings from Hell, though it may just attract another few thousand Hellhammer followers to check this out.


Originally written in edited form for Metalegion #13 - www.metalegion.com