(written by Islander)
The Leipzig-based band Morbyda will have their debut album Under the Spell released on June 20th by Dying Victims Productions. If enough people find it, we predict it will bring throngs of people under its spell, people across a wide range of ages who relish the glories of devil-horned heavy metal. This quartet may be fairly new to the scene, but they sound like they’ve been at this for decades.
“Blackened speed metal” is the high-level descriptor of the music, and it’s not off-base, but it doesn’t fully capture all the traditions Morbyda pull from, or the absolutely electrifying and fist-pumping results they’ve achieved. With this album, they become a band worth watching very closely
Morbyda launch the album with a song called “Evil“, and evil it is. The high, ringing riffage and serpentine lead-guitar create a sinister and supernatural atmosphere, and the caustic, fang-bared screams and beastly snarls create visions of devil-horned fiends, often soaring high toward the breaking point — and nearly singing.
The song also includes fierce slashing chords that throb with a feral pulse, and bursts of shrieking and feverishly squirming fretwork. Although the drumming and bass-lines aren’t nearly as exuberantly crazed as the guitars and vocals, they don’t need to be. The song still sounds like an infernally glorious romp.
“Evil” also establishes patterns that reappear in the following songs — dual guitars that strike with piercing sound and exhilarating nimbleness; diabolically unhinged and range-spanning vocals; and a hard-slugging and heavily rumbling rhythm section that repeatedly get heads moving. Moreover, the songs routinely reach glorious heights, expansive in the scale of their pentagram-strewn majesty, generously laced with blazing heavy metal and thrash-fueled riffs, and with head-spinning arena-ready solos that are worth the price of admission all by themselves.
But while these are common and relentlessly captivating ingredients, the songs aren’t complete clones of each other, because Morbyda reveal their songwriting aptitude by changing pace and intertwining emotionally nuanced melodies from one to the next.
“Mother of Decay” creates moments of ghostly peril, feverish fear, and haunting grief, while “Open the Gates of Fire” is indeed a spectacle of eye-popping, heart-racing musical pyromania. Meanwhile, “Turning The Wheel Of Steel” creates a seductive aura of ancient mysticism and black-magic sorcery, but also attacks like demon hordes freed from their chains, and “The Curse” creates another blood-rushing bonfire spectacle, rivaling “Open the Gates of Fire“; one of the shortest songs on the album, it will give you the quickest idea of what Morbyda are all about at their core.
In the final threesome, “Sacrifice” turns the mood back into the darker, more painful emotional territory of “Mother of Decay“, but also creates an atmosphere of ancient myth and mysticism; as one of the album’s longer songs, “Under Her Spell” is wide-ranging — deeply sinister and uncanny but also infernally haughty and a hell-for-leather charge; and at the end “Morbid Ways of Dying” is simply… epic… like the soundtrack to a fantastical saga of swords and sorcery.
In a nutshell, Under the Spell will appeal strongly to adherents of classic, flame-throwing, shred-tastic heavy metal spectacle. Morbyda pay homage to honored traditions, and do so with a fiery and ferocious spirit, abundant songwriting chops, jaw-dropping fretwork, and unbound vocal madness.
MORBYDA is:
Joris – Drums
Julez – Guitars
Chris – Vocals, Guitars
Antonio – Bass
Dying Victims Productions is releasing Under the Spell on CD, vinyl LP, and digital formats. Find more info about those via the links below. The album comes recommended for fans of “Japan’s Sabbat, millennial Nifelheim, the late/great Eidomantum, early Tribulation, or Hungary’s Tormentor.”
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.dyingvictims.com
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/under-the-spell