November 2025 Feature Release - The Horde

I have The Horde feture nomination this month and I have gone for the obscure this month, at least in terms of the band being from Costa Rica, where very few death metal bands originate from in my experience.

https://metal.academy/releases/60941

Mortual's debut album, Altar of Brutality came out in July of this year and has been receiving more than reasonable critical acclaim in reviews I have read.  Let's see what the folks of Metal Academy make of this one then.

It was this album's turn in my feature release rotation this morning and impressions after a single playthrough were very positive. Hoping to get a full review issued at some point after a few more spins. Loving this guys vocals.

A relatively new name on the death metal scene, Mortual hail from Costa Rica and hold true to the legacy of the death metal of the Americas. Being a completely new name to me I went back to their earlier EP to get a feel for the band and found it to be a little bit messy with a poor production that saw the tracks descending into a bit of a quagmire of identical-sounding noisiness. Thankfully on this, their debut full-length, the production issues have been addressed and that has revealed a much more accomplished band than was originally projected. The title alone should be an indicator that, despite hailing from elsewhere in the Americas, we are definitely on Floridian territory here with Morbid Angel obviously being a touchstone. Their sound also incorporates the abyssal, thunderous quality of the likes of Autopsy and, probably more pertinently, Incantation which feels like it actually intensifies the brutality the band serve up.

Opening up with an absolute brute of a track in "Mortuary Rites" Mortual set out their stall in no uncertain terms with the track veering from an almost black metal-ish, lightning fast tempo to an ominously brooding crawl and back again all in the space of five minutes of thunderous riffs and battering drum patterns. I appreciate the variations in pacing and am always up for a drop into a doomy tempo as a respite from the blitzkrieg riffs and machine gun blasts. Guitarist Justin Sánchez Barrantes, aka Justin Corpse, doubles-up as vocalist and possesses an excellent guttural growl that is one of the real highlights of the album for me, his sulphurous belchings drenched in foetid filth.

The riffs are fine but, in truth, there weren't really that many that hit me hard and stuck for long and I would like to hear a few more that rolled around for a while in my head later. The guitar soloing is pretty intense and mercurial and is certainly a strong point, providing a manic energy to what is already a pretty stoked atmosphere. In all honesty though, there isn't anything here we haven't heard many times before, so what you think of the album depends on whether you are happy to hear a band playing a well-established style of metal very well or if you place more emphasis on the search for growth and experimentation in your metal. Me, I am quite at ease listening to a technically adept band with a deep understanding of the genre in which they ply their trade and an album that enhances the legacy of the giants who influenced them.

4/5

I have paid so little attention to death metal in 2025 that it was a struggle to find a release to feature when my turn came around for November. If I recall correctly, I only found Mortual from a previous The Horde playlist as I made some semblance of effort to try and create a “to do” list of anything that I heard on the monthly playlist that piqued my interest. I had already rated the release as 3.5 stars and to be honest, further visits have not altered that score.

For pretty much all the reasons stated in the other review by Sonny, Altar of Brutality is to some extent an album that celebrates the death metal artform, doing so incredibly well I might add. However, it is hard to get too excited over meat ‘n potatoes death metal nowadays, especially after over thirty-years of me listening to this music. Props to Mortual for doing such a fine reflection of such an established style, but the longevity and memorability factors for this one are not all that high.

3.5/5