This is the debut album from US sludge metal band Mordeo.
Mordeo is a 41-minute slab of ugly crusty darkness. Fuelled by punk aggression and sludge hatred, this is music that wants to rend and destroy. Mordeo have unleashed a violent beast of an album.
Hostile, abrasive, and nasty; this is what this form of caustic sludge is all about. Mordeo take crust and hardcore influences, cover them in the thickest of sludge heaviness, inject potent doom metal steroids, and then inflict the resulting toxin on the listener within waves of noise and giant walls of distortion. You can hear touches of grindcore and death metal scattered around too, adding to the music’s belligerence. Mordeo is an album of heaviness and anger. Raw in passion, brutal in execution.
The paces vary from fast aggression to slow oppression, all delivered with venomous intensity. There are furious d-beats and barbaric blast beats, both delivered with impassioned invectives and grinding ferocity. These sit alongside mountains of doom and grim nightmare atmosphere. Mordeo are not afraid to strip it all back to mood-focused minimalism or to revel in doom metal worldbuilding. Moments such as these are potent in their own right, enhancing the album with thoughtful texture, and also succeed in allowing the listener to gather their wits before the next sludge-powered onslaught begins.
It is unlikely that Mordeo is a record that will gather wide appeal, as it’s far too raw and horrible for that. However, for lovers of caustic heaviness and brutal intensity, shot with feeling and atmosphere, Mordeo is a winner.
One for fans of bands like All Pigs Must Die, Charger, Full of Hell, Knoll, Mammoth Grinder, Nails, Primitive Man, Sunlight’s Bane, Trap Them, Weekend Nachos, etc.
Wonderbox Metal 