MORBID SACRIFICE - SEVERED DEATH / 2002 / DISCOGRAPHY / BIOGRAPHY / REVIEW

THIS ALBUM CONTAIN(8-TRACKS)
1-THE OFFERING
2-BURIED ALIVE
3-HUMPING THE DEATH
4-MISOGYNICIDE
5-SEVERED DEATH
6-DIVINELY EXHUMED
7-WHO I SERVE
8-DELIVERANCE OF THE BEAST
CREDITS:
Devilkill - Guitar
Chris Auman - Vocals, Bass
Nate Davis - Guitar
Tom Klinesmith - Drums
BIOGRAPHY/REVIEW:
(Morbid Sacrifice @ MySpace)
Morbid Sacrifice started in 1995 when Devilkill (Guitar) and Chris Auman (Vocals/Bass) came together with the understanding that they wanted to create a Death Metal band along the lines of their favorite bands like Crimson Thorn, Vengeance Rising, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel amongst many others. Hailing for a little town in Central Pennsylvania it wasn't exactly easy to come across like minded musicians. After having played with many drummers and guitarist they finally found band mates with Nate Davis (Guitar) and rounding everything out Tom Klinesmith (Drums). In the 7 years Morbid Sacrifice was together they played their fair share of shows with artist from Antithesis to Alethian and even artist like Sam Black Church. Their claim to fame however comes on two separate occasions, they where supposed to play with both Hatebreed and Madball, and both shows the headliner ended up backing out for personal reasons. By the time 2002 came around Morbid Sacrifice entered the studio to record what is now being released, their debut album "Severed Death". However it wasn't long after the album was recorded the band members decided to go their own separate ways, which meant few copies of the album ever got released to the public. So here we are today, the year 2006 and Morbid Sacrifice's debut album is just now finally getting the release it has deserved for many years. After the break up Tom and Chris went on to form progressive death metal band Nightsbane (still together with an EP release), Tom is also the current drummer for Royal Anguish. Devilkill went on to form punk band Anti-Hell Society (self released one album - no longer together), and nobody is to sure what happened to Nate Davis.

Many Christian death and grind bands have a peculiar thing about them where they retain a sort of amateurish sound throughout their careers. I don't know why many of them never display the evolution of sound or focus that many secular bands do, or if they're deliberately retaining that garage sound for whatever reason, but it would be a reasonable assertion to make that numerous Christian bands have a rather static growth pattern. Another strange feature that I've noticed in much of Christian extreme metal is a tendency to offer not just a primitive and relatively unrefined look at the genre, but one that hearkens back to traditional heavy metal often, and perhaps even moreso than early extreme metal artists. There's a few possible explanations for this, the most ready one being that looking towards secular traditional metal bands is less blasphemous than looking towards early, primarily Satanic death metal bands for inspiration, but really that's just speculation arising from a relatively anti-Christian perspective.

Both of these elements are very clearly present on 'Severed Death', the sole album by Christian death metal band Morbid Sacrifice, but more interesting is that these elements both lend themselves to the success of this album as a musical endeavor. The playing, writing, and production on this album is definitely amateurish and garagey in every way, and there are huge influences from traditional heavy metal on this death metal album, but for some reason it manages to work out. It doesn't sound like anything else in death metal (for very clear reasons to be described later), and it's certainly something of an experiment on many levels, but it's one that manages to, intentionally or not, work out quite well.

In essence, 'Severed Death' is a death metal album that has no real intention of sounding evil. Many of the riffs are not just openly melodic, but weirdly reverent sounding and uplifting, without much in the way of particular malevolence. They occasionally sound dark, perhaps to convey some sense of Christian fear, but overall it's a death metal album that manages to be part of the genre while excising what many would say are some of the most crucial elements of the style. It's weird to hear death metal with passages that are full-fledged rock and roll or traditional metal, but they're there without any remote attempt to hide what they are. It's just such a weird, honest album that I can't help but respect it; no one else would be willing to put something like this out without any self-consciousness.

The death metal played here is a very, very primitive style of it. Blast beats are played rarely and awkwardly, double bass is occasionally used (often rumbling away under a very incompetently played solo), vocals are an unprofessional grunt and occasionally Fisheresque screech. Clean guitar passages are scattered intermittently throughout the album with a very crude sense of placement but a surprisingly good melodic objective. In a way, it sounds like this was transported from 1989, before all the rules of the genre were written; quite frankly I'm not sure how the band managed to crank out an album so untouched by modern style. The riffs are mostly tremolo based, alternating between the low and wild styles of early Morbid Angel, rocky or traditional heavy metal riffs ala Iron Maiden, or uplifting and epic melodies like something out of Graveland's catalog. And yet they all fit together, somehow, and on an even stranger note, you can almost feel that this is a Christian album without thinking about the lyrical themes at all.

It's hard to adequately describe music like this because while similarities can be drawn, nothing will quite encompass just how unusual this is in the greater context of death metal. It's a weirdly pleasing listen; not great if you're expecting anything approaching traditional death metal, but this strange fusion of traditional metal, early and brutal death metal, and soaring, epic melody is certainly a unique and bizarre one. It's probably for the best that the band broke up soon after the release of this album; I doubt that any good would have come from another. But alone, this is great, and a strangely capable pillar rising out of the mostly empty desert that is Christian heavy metal. Recommended on levels of both music and curiosity; worthy of study from people well versed in the metal scene(http://www.holymetalrob.com/)