Mortuus Infradaemoni – Inmortuos Sum

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MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI is a German black metal band who formed in 2005. “Inmortuos Sum,” is their fourth full length album; they also released a demo in 2005. “Inmortuos Sum,” is definitely a dark and oh so abrasive album.  The vocals and instruments have a razor sharp edge to them, very underground and against the grain in every imaginable way.  The production is rough but not in a way that is necessarily lo fi.  In fact, I say the production and mixing lends these crazy songs a certain charm.

The album’s eight tracks cover over an hour of material—this is definitely a long album and I’ll admit that although every song is solid, the longer tracks could be shorter.  The song structures are unconventional and don’t follow any certain format.  I actually don’t mind this, for the most part, because the standard “verse-chorus-verse” does get old very quickly.  With that being said, I tend to prefer my longer songs in the doom and prog genres.  There are exceptions, as there is with anything, but as a whole I don’t need a twelve minute long black metal song.  These stretched out songs combined with the open ended format does tend to make the album kind of blur together at times.

With all that being said, this is very much a riff driven album, both for the guitars and bass.  The mixing makes the latter pop out pretty well—the bass is consistently well done and important to each of the songs. There isn’t any ambient or synth atmospheres or folk elements—this is pure black metal with a focus on destruction and pummeling rather than any deep thoughts or introspection.  And you know what?  Sometimes that is all I need.

The album opens with the intro song, “Insepultus,” which is solid for what it is.  Mostly instrumental, aside from sound bites and growls, the song ramps up the energy quickly and paves the way for “Madness Rides With The Star-Winds.” This particular track is just over twelve minutes long and I can’t help but feel the albums should have opened the first track proper with one of the shorter numbers.  But the song does well on its own, especially the heavy handed and, often times, tribal like pounding of the drums.  The main riff in the beginning is groovy but covered in blackened bleakness.  The vocals are a echo laced raspy growl and black screams but halfway through we get depressive cleans, reminding me a bit of the few cleans that OLD MAN’s CHILD have used over the years. At this point, the riffs are hammered in over and over, very hypnotic and I appreciate how they get more groovy over time

“Abhominog,” feels like the song that should have been the intro.  This one is a straight up banger—fast, focused, and to the point, The vocals in particular are disgusting—perfect for the atmosphere of the song.  The drums are energetic and compliment each part of the song with pure rage, focusing all the hate on providing a strong foundation and rhythm performance. The riffs in “Der Todten Tantz,” are insane and perfectly backed by the vocals.  The drums, which are lighting fast and nearly inhuman, push all the other elements together and drive them further.  The result is a chaotic song and is surreal in feel and very violent in approach.  From the first second to the last, it doesn’t stop—this is a unstoppable juggernaut of a song.

The title track is last and although I feel it didn’t need to be 14 minutes long, it is indeed a fitting end to the album.  The intro is long, the drums building up the action while the vocals get every closer to exploding.  There are several decent riffs throughout the song and it seems to go into hyper speed at times, as if trying to beat a race against itself but there isn’t a whole lot of variation that kept my interest the entire time.

All in all, MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI’s “Inmortuos Sum,” is one of the more uncompromising and abusive albums I’ve heard this year.  It isn’t perfect but I don’t think this type of black metal is supposed to be.

Songwriting: 7
Musicianship: 8
Memorability: 6
Production: 8