Undead

Here is where the rubber meets the road, my friends. If you were to ask me for my short-list of contenders for best power metal album ever, Tad Morose’s Undead would be high on that list, right up there with Falconer’s Falconer, Gamma Ray’s No World Order and even Angel Dust’s Enlighten the Darkness. (If you read my review for that last album in my list, you’ll know that’s not idle praise.) It’s not at all with a sense of pretension that Undead opens with a creepy, jingling intro that swells ominously with a dim strings section as Urban Breed begins incanting in a near-whisper – and that becomes abundantly clear once that first squealing riff of ‘Servant of the Bones’ hits you. Because this is fuggin’-‘eavy metal.

It’s nigh-impossible to really strike that sweet spot where you have both moving, emotionally-poignant music, melody and harmony, and still capture that vicious, chthonic momentum of the best thrash metal bands. But – pardon the geekery – Tad take a damn Daedric warhammer to that sweet spot with ten dead-on overhead swings. Credit it, if you like, to Urban Breed’s Dio-esque vocal charisma, to the ease with which he transitions from his signature snarl to a wail full of pathos; or, if you prefer, to the dynamism of Christer Andersson, Daniel Olsson and Peter Morén. Any way you slice it, this band melds ballsy, blaring Accept-style riffing with earwormish, Fates Warning-reminiscent melodic passages with true aplomb. ‘Servant of the Bones’ is infectious enough, but you can’t help your blood pumping to the chorus line on ‘Where the Sun Never Shines’. And of course, there’s ‘Corporate Masters’, which is self-consciously indulgent in that regard, charging forward with a virulent, athletic arena-rock rhythm while Urban Breed belts out his rage against the rich and the mighty.

But Undead has not left behind either the dark, doomy predilections or the taste for white-collar melodic progressions which characterised Tad’s earlier work. As it’s become clear for awhile, they’ve now embraced that Ancient Near Eastern Powerslave motif with wide-open arms, and many of their songs (‘Another Time Around’, ‘Order of the Seven Poles’ – listen to that bridge, damn!, ‘Undead’, ‘The Dead and His Son’, even, somewhat strangely, the guitar solo of ‘Lord on High’) have this subtle impress. Instead of this album being just one blood-pounding full-tilt charge after another, Tad Morose take the time to build atmosphere in these compositions. Is this still ‘power metal’? Sure. And there’s less about Undead that can be easily labelled ‘progressive’ the way there was on the previous albums, there’s no doubt about that. But there’s a full, spacious depth to much of this album that indirectly showcases the debts they still owe to their progressive roots. They aren’t screwing around anymore with true dead space and ominous keyboard- and effects-driven interludes the way they were on Sender of Thoughts. But there’s still a sense of vastness to the compositions, a portension in some of the drawn-out chords, the tense reverb, the occasional gruff cultic gang shouts or tolling bells, not only on the doom-laden down-tempo bruisers but even on the speedier tracks like ‘No Wings to Burn’, that sets them apart from the common run of their contemporaries.

And that all matches the thought that went into the lyrics. I remember reading in an interview with Krunt or Urban, can’t remember where, that Undead was never meant to be a concept album, but that somehow it ended up that way. Indeed, you can hear the common thread that runs throughout, of people (or demons or angels or other spirits) who have been left behind by the ravages of time, forgotten by their gods, bloodily sacrificed to them, waylaid by forces beyond their control, and who now linger in a state between life and death – caught between a life without usefulness and a need which can’t let them leave it. I definitely like that idea; perhaps I have too high an opinion of the ‘accidental concept album’. Regardless of where the inspirations came from, or whether they took on that common thread on purpose or by an act of serendipity, the thematics do string together well.

It’s hard to know what else to say about this album without coming off like a total deluded fanatic – which, perhaps, I am. But here Tad Morose have put out a damn solid album crammed full of music to smash worlds to. For a power metal fan, Undead is essential listening; I don’t say that about a lot of things metal-related, but this is one of them.

20 / 20