Moribundis Grim

This ‘album’ is such a disappointment. To start with a little background, I’ve been a long time fan of the band and Killjoy going back to the late 90s/early 2000s, this ‘scene’ was my bread and butter in those golden years: ordering CDs off RedStream, the Yahoo fan groups, following the side projects, corresponding with the guys, everything. This band has extreme nostalgia and fond memories for me, so when it was announced that new material was being made based off of unearthed vocal recordings, I got excited.

This is not the eulogy album I thought it would be. In fact, it’s more of a disjointed compilation. The ‘band’ consists of the drummer they had since Deathtrip, and guitar and bass from guys who were never on previous albums (but were on the Haxxan project in 2016). For this reason alone it struck me as odd that this new guitarist is front and center on the album cover (along with John McEntee of Incantation for some reason). If you’re doing a tribute to Killjoy and the Necrophagia’s legacy, maybe put Killjoy and Necrophagia front and center, not yourselves. (that said, it’s very similar to White Worm Cathedral’s cover, so maybe they were trying to continue that theme; but I like many fans prefer gore & horror over cheesy drawings)

The production on this album is truly god awful and disjointed, slapped together on the fly with no attention or detail or care about presentation. I really can’t emphasize enough how little whoever worked on this gave a shit. This isn’t about “good” versus “raw” death metal production - the volume levels aren’t even matched. The intro and new title track started off pretty good, but then the sound drops and there’s zero consistency between the tracks after that point. First it’s quiet and muddy, then the drums are cranked to 11 and vocals buried or distorted. It really helps to have your hand on the volume knob while listening to this.

It’s also hardly a “new” full release album based on old recordings, but really two tracks: Moribundus Grim, and the Holloween 3 cover track. Sandwiched in the middle are shoddy re-recordings of Bleeding Torment and Mental Decay from Season of the Dead, and track 6 is a cellphone-quality recording of a track in 2017 that is painful to listen to with the cymbals crashing over everything. Wrapping things up are an instrumental featuring Mirai Kawashima (nice touch) and then a second outro. Ultimately, the label or ‘band’ found an unreleased track and instead of putting out a single, padded enough filler to sell an LP in what absolutely looks like a self-indulgent cash crab.

If this were a single, I’d be okay with it. It’s cool hearing the Necrophagia sound again. This material falls somewhere in between the old school stuff and later years, without any hints of the (much better and sinister) Anselmo albums or horror-soaked Frediablo era. But liking one new (underwhelming) single doesn’t mean I need to pretend to like the rest of this slop.

36.66/100