Not once, but twice, does the dead christ get baptized on LORD MORTVM's second slab of satanic sludge.  Not only that, but the album features guitars by The Real Goatfvcker, which implies that there's some sick fucker out there claiming to lay down with goats, but not ever actually following through.  In other words, this is some black metal shit right here, from the blood red incomprehensible font and the agonizing silhouette of the good Lord M howling at the moon on the cover, to the reverb-drenched, high end shrieks that growl over the darkened morass of Satan-worshiping doom there within.  "Dead Christ Baptism" is an album that comes from the basement bowels of a rotten temple to the fallen angel, a place where saviors go to die. The work of a clearly diabolic Norwegian madman, the album combines classic, slow-tempoed sludge with the disturbing, macabre soul of black metal. While it may be doomed to spend eternity in the dark dampened tomb of satanic metal, at least it's resigned to its eternal fate.

These are not complex songs.  LORD MORTVM likes to find a groove and stick to it, much like twisting the knife into the heart an extra two dozen times when one or two would do the trick. This isn't necessarily a criticism when it comes to darkened, evil music such as this: overkill is the whole point, actually. In fact, the longer tracks, such as third song "Eternal Gates" and sixth song "Demon Slaughter" may be the best songs on the album.  They give room for The Real Goatfvcker time to unpack his bluesy, blood-soaked guitar leads, and the plodding, deafening pace makes for some ingloriously catastrophic doom. The latter song captures some of the finer elements of the genre: you can see the hands suspended in the air, slowly collapsing onto the snare and crash; the slow-motion groove of the right arm as it slowly sweeps over two vibrating strings that seem to oscillate in a morass of plasmic fluid.  Doom, particularly blackened doom, much in the way that luminaries such as BETHLEHEM and FORGOTTEN TOMB do, has the ability to sever the limbs from the body, the mind from movement, the heart from empathy, and create a world where the soul seems to separate from the flesh and the blood.  It becomes a cathartic, almost meditative state. This isn't to say that LORD MORTVM achieves this mindstate consistently- there's a fine line between mental separation and plain boredom- but some moments, such as "Demon Slaughter" (and the second time the dead christ gets baptized, in which I learned, for the first time, that classic Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield was part of the Church of Satan) work better than others.

If his commitment to developing as an artist is as dedicated and patient as some of the songs on LORD MORTVM's second album, then there may be greater things in store.  It's more varied than his debut from two years ago, and it doesn't wear out its welcome as quickly as some other doom albums do. That being said, "Dead Christ Baptism" is a bit of a mixed bag of severed messiah fetuses (is it 'fetuses' or 'feti'? Only Planned Parenthood knows) and bloodied upside down crosses.  And if, indeed, that sexpot Jayne Mansfield was bowing down at the feet of the fallen angel, it's time for me to watch Female Jungle through an entirely different, blood-stained lens.