Malamorte - God Needs Evil

Malamorte

God Needs Evil

by Neil Cook at 07 April 2020, 6:28 PM

Hailing from Satan’s infernal realm. OK Roma, which in these Covid-19 infected times, like most places, must feel like living in hell.  MALMORTE is a side project of Alex Nunziati (L.V, Lord Vampyre no less).  Created in 2009, this new release is the 4^th album, steering away from their Death Metal sound, to their current Occult Heavy Metal sound.

A quick word about the cover.  I love it! It will definitely rub some up the wrong way, but for me I say bring it on!

I really should like this more than I do, and I have tried, but things don’t sit well for me I’m afraid.  There are some good points.  There is some very good guitar work on the album.  But I am not a fan of the vocals, and the drumming is a little mechanical. This is just the opinion of this reviewer, but the vibe feels a little forced.

Good points are the opening track “The Demons That Devour Your Soul” after a suitable Hammer Horror spoken intro, the song has a the feel of IRON MAIDEN, and some of the best guitar work on the album.  As is the solo on “After The Apocalypse”, in fact this isn’t a bad song either, and the vocal actually work well on this track, just enough menace.  The acoustic outro is a nice touch too,

Again “They Shall See The Truth” is close to the mark, but the drums don’t do it for me and where is the bass? It could so easily been a relentless pounding track, but it just becomes repetitive.

They then go and throw “Morbid Temptation” at us.  This is nearly the best song on the album for me. It is the closest to being the majestic, doom laden infernal song it could have been.  The vocal suit, the tone is creepy and only misses a deep resonant evil bass line to make it a brilliant song.

It is interesting how many albums save the best till last, and the title track “God Needs Evil” is no exception.  This is by far the best track on the album.  It pounds along, on the best drumming on the album, and do my ears deceive me there is a bass making a couple of decent cameos, plus this is the best singing on the album.  The song gels, the guitars are suitably  wicked.  Oh if only the whole album sounded like this one song, everything would have been brilliant.

I’m afraid the album is in balance for me. As much as I admire two people being able to produce this, a couple more musicians, on drums and bass would have made a world of difference, more depth to the sound, more flare to the drums, and this would have been a solid 8 out of 10.

Songwriting: 6
Originality: 6
Memorability: 6
Production: 6