Mortification Rites

As death/doom continues its struggle to emerge from the long shadow of Incantation, Scotland’s Order of Decay point to one possible route. Make no mistake, this is still comfortably nestled within the comforting bosom of their New Jersey forebears, particularly the strained incrementalism of ‘Diabolical Conquest’ (the vocalist even sounds somewhat reminiscent of Daniel Corchado). But the devil’s in the details of ‘Mortification Rites’, with subtle gestures toward daylight via a latent triumphalism that may be hard to spot beneath the muscular despair pervading this album.

The production is suitably massive, mimicking the sonic cathedral-esque shapes of caverncore, but bucking this trend by actually attempting to retain the solidity and clarity of the riffs without relying solely on overbearing reverb. Guitars serve the dual function of providing walls of atmospheric gloom whilst articulating riffs and melodic structures of a distinctive character. Meaty drums sit beneath, solidifying the guts of this album with giant death knells of percussive doom. Order of Decay also work in elongated dark ambient interludes and some subtle keyboard layers atop the metallic instrumentation, bolstering the sense of theological despair with the use of minimalist church organs and choral tones.

Ultimately, this album merely gestures toward a route out of Incantation’s shadow. It adopts a similar strategy of overwhelming the listener with chromatic blasts of surplus information before slowing the tempo in order to work the themes through a laboured, protracted death via droning tritones and cyclical repetitions. Where they do point to something new for the death/doom format, it is through explicitly melodic, borderline bright refrains that hint at the epic in the peripheral. They also take a more traditional approach on some of these tracks by gradually building to a climax in the style of modern funeral doom. This is where the structure and dramatic stakes coalesce around the slow building of a theme at slower tempos, with each cycle adding new information. This is in stark contrast to bursting out of the gate with sheer chaos before dragging things down to a more considered rumination.

This album succeeds as an exercise in restraint, a virtue sadly lacking in many of Order of Decay’s peers. It leaves many questions unanswered as to how it intends to carry the style forward atop the modest foundations laid out here. But it warrants accolades for at least trying in this regard where others have refused.

Originally published at Hate Meditations