MORTE is a Black Metal band from Barreiro, Setúbal, Portugal signed to Firecum Records, and no I did not make that up apparently it's a real record label. As much as I like Black Metal I have a bit of a bias against immature Black Metal bands. Any band that unironically uses the word trve or spells every U with a V in their font, just immediately turns me off. On this album the music actually isn't that immature, the lyrics seem to be really basic, like just typical Black Metal, satanic nonsense.

When I say Satanic nonsense let me clarify, there is atheistic Satanism and theistic Satanism, but in either case the ideas of ritual sacrifice, blood rituals and other crap like that aren't part of it. So, when a band makes their music about literally worshipping a demonic entity that consumes souls and flesh, I roll my eyes so hard they might pop out of my head, then I can offer them to Satan as my sacrifice.

All joking aside, the atmosphere setting is reasonably well done, the guitar sounds cold and distant, the drums are well produced and all in all it sounds pretty good. I don't love the vocals, but I've definitely heard worse, so why isn't this album clicking with me? Honestly because it's generic; you know how you can have an AI read all the Marvel comics for example and then write its own comic based on all that material it consumed? I've seen this done for Batman and it's actually really amusing, but my point is this album sounds like what would happen if I had an AI take over pro-tools, listen to a huge chunk of Black Metal from the mid-90s onward and this is what it would come up with.

I suppose that's my problem with a lot of Black Metal these days, some of these bands just don't do much to distinguish them from the crowd, and let me be clear, that's fine. It's your music and your vision and if MORTE just wanted to write a straightforward, no frills second wave Black Metal album then I would say they have succeeded and I'm sure people who are more into traditional Black Metal will enjoy this more than I.

It's not even that I dislike it, because the music is actually pretty good and the production is fantastic for a Black Metal album (that in of itself separates them from the crowd a bit I suppose). I can certainly appreciate the musicianship on display and the passion for Black Metal, but it all blends together, and I kinda hinted at this, but this is about as generic as generic Black Metal gets and that's my issue with it.

Now, let's get some positivity in here, "A Virgem Grita" is one of the better moments on the album. This song takes a bit of a trip, it starts off as huge epic Black Metal and then slows down and rolls around in the sludge for a couple minutes with some neat guitar effects adding to the atmosphere in the background. The bridge almost has some emotion to it and it makes for a really good transition into the outro which blast beats all the way to the end. It's clear that "A Virgem Grita" was a focal point of this album in writing, it's easily the most interesting song on the album and the only one really worth talking about sadly.

I always give a promo my best effort when writing reviews for a deadline, but sometimes it's difficult to force yourself to be in the mood for something, even if it's a genre you like. I like Black Metal, but I admit I'm more interested in the atmospheric, psychedelic, proggy side of Black Metal. There's some great straightforward Black Metal that I enjoy, but this album just doesn't have enough of its own identity to really rise above the pack. If you like no-nonsense satanic Black Metal, then hopefully this will float your boat.