{"id":103829,"date":"2024-08-24T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=103829"},"modified":"2024-09-05T13:15:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T12:15:59","slug":"album-review-mortal-as-life-leaves-the-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-mortal-as-life-leaves-the-body\/","title":{"rendered":"MORTAL – As Life Leaves The Body (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MORTAL
As Life Leaves The Body<\/strong><\/span>
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\nSelf-released (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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San Jose in California has just gotten noisier due to the arrival of death metal quartet Mortal. The crude cover art depicting a woman being dragged into the grave while hooded and faceless beings look on is quite the spectacle.<\/p>\n

If you want a good example of a band correctly conjuring old school aggression then As Life Leaves The Body<\/em> is the album for you. Straight from the sordid pits of 1990, Mortal digs up dense yet aggressive riffs that come coated in dirt. The production is perfect if you want to sniff the dusty vaults of a bygone era whereby no frills are attached.<\/p>\n

After a short intro (\u2018As Life Leaves The Body\u2019) the band dives into \u2018Anatomical Crucifixion\u2019, a primitive and murky track that hints towards the Floridian style of menace, particularly in the deep vocal bellows of guitarist Chris Villase\u00f1or.<\/p>\n

Flirtations with Morbid Angel are common throughout, but the ripples of clammy density can only be admired. A fine example of such macabre menace reveals itself on \u2018Death Of A Thousand Cuts\u2019, an organic chugfest that hits that sweet spot with mouldy aplomb. It\u2019s a shame that rhythm guitarist Fili Vera has since departed from the band because his earthy tone brings such a whiff of humidity alongside the leads of Chris Villase\u00f1or. Drummer Angus Fong and bassist Ricardo Sanchez bring \u2018Chapel Of Bones\u2019 to life as again the guitar swooshes like a foul blustery wind.<\/p>\n

For me though it\u2019s the more brooding episodes which enable the rotten wisps to permeate the air such as on \u2018Hanged, Drawn, And Quartered\u2019. This is an extremely atmospheric album awash with foreboding structures and grim tides of mayhem. \u2018Exposure Of The Innards\u2019 and closer \u2018Horror Of Entombment\u2019 showcase those passages of foaming aggression, but each and every track is a sodden, decomposed slab of meat that once consumed results in the listener succumbing to hallucinations of horror dredged straight from the halcyon days of morbid death metal.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MORTALAs Life Leaves The Body Self-released (2024)Rating: 8\/10 San Jose in California has just gotten noisier due to the arrival of death metal quartet Mortal. The crude cover art depicting a woman being dragged into the grave while hooded and faceless beings look on is quite the spectacle. If you want a good example of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5772],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-mortal-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103830,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103829\/revisions\/103830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}