March 2025 - Feature Release - The Horde Edition

So, once more we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that it's time to nominate a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

I have gone for the legendary 1987 demo from Swedish death metallers Morbid, an early band that contained members of Entombed alongside infamous future Mayhem vocalist, Dead. The demo doesn't actually seem to be on Metal Academy, although it received a full release in 2000 on Reaper Records. If you want to check it out on Spotify, it comprises the first four tracks on the "Year of the Goat" compilation.

My review is short and sweet, like the EP itself (well, maybe not so sweet!):

Morbid were a death/thrash/black metal band from Sweden who never had an official release before splitting in 1988, a couple of it's members going on to form Entombed (guitarist Ulf Cederlund and drummer Lars-Göran Petrov who was vocalist for Entombed). This demo is (in)famous for featuring legendary Mayhem vocalist Dead and features four tracks with a runtime of 17 minutes. I have loved this from the very first time I heard it, so much so that I managed to get a copy of the Reaper Records 2000 version a couple of years ago that set me back a ridiculous amount, but I felt it was worth it. It's death metal is very thrashy in execution and, mainly because of Dead's contribution, has quite a black metal sound, at least vocally. The production is very good for a demo, there is a hefty bottom end to it that contributes to the deathliness of the riffs and the playing itself is very good indeed with the band sounding like an inordinately tight outfit for a bunch of guys who had only been together a couple of years and had never put out a studio album. The songs are brilliant and easily rival the early stuff from the German thrashers on whom a lot of their material seems to be based. Similarly to the Poison demo this is probably more important to the black metal historian than the death metal antiquarian but either way it is a fantastic snapshot of a band who I wish could have produced more because if they were this good on a demo then we can only guess how fucking great they could have been had they put out a proper album or two.