Psalmus Mortis

01. Obscure Exordium02. Vanished03. Aunt Christie’s Will04. Never To Awake05. The Tree06. Retromorphosis07. Machine08. Exalted SplendourFans of technical death metal need to brace themselves. RETROMORPHOSIS are a new name in Swedish brutality, but the men behind “Psalmus Mortis” will be familiar to anyone who worshipped at SPAWN OF POSSESSION’s feet. They were one of the genre’s most influential bands, and an eternal benchmark for technical excellence and wild imagination. 12 years have passed since the Swedes released their final album, the mind-boggling “Incurso”, and four fifths of their final lineup have reconvened as RETROMORPHOSIS: the next last word in extreme instrumental wizardry. “Psalmus Mortis” is insanely great from bewildering start to cataclysmic finish. Obvious from its first few minutes alone, the sheer ingenuity and inhuman agility on display is breathtaking. If you like tech-death, this will absolutely blow your head off.A cynic might wonder why anybody would get overly excited about another super-technical death metal record at this point. Levels of speed, skill and sonic destructiveness have gone through the roof over the last 20 years, often to the detriment of more mundane things like songwriting and listenability. 43 minutes of deeply creative extreme metal, “Psalmus Mortis” is an album of meticulously crafted songs, and not just a knotty collage of intricate riffs. The musicianship is, of course, absurdly impressive, but RETROMORPHOSIS have more cerebral aims in mind than simply dazzling the world with their dexterity. As extreme as it undoubtedly is, “Psalmus Mortis” is progressive to the core and weirdly accessible as a result.It starts with an explosive instrumental overture that swiftly confirms that these boys can still play a bit. After making the vast majority of the tech-death competition look like chumps within less than 2 minutes, RETROMORPHOSIS then serve up “Vanished”: a near-perfect amalgam of MORBID ANGEL pomp and virtuoso shredding, with eerie atmospherics and a savage, machine-gun vocal from Dennis Röndum. “Aunt Christie’s Will” turns up the heat, with every nimble-fingered flourish hammered home with mercilessly precise blasts and seamless shifts in time signature and tempo, and an accompanying gothic mist that leaks through the song’s titanium, tech-death carapace. Arcane death metal tropes are given a ruthless, 21st century upgrade on “Never To Awake”, which takes a detour through thick, primordial soup, with psychedelic synths howling in the background before RETROMORPHOSIS floor the accelerator and hurtle to a statuesque collapse. Another song with a hard-on for haunted house atmospherics, “The Tree” is equal parts progressive splurge and crushing, old-school assault. “Retromorphosis” is a 42-minute miniature manifesto, with multiple twists and turns, and a ghoulish, goth metal denouement. The closing “Exalted Splendour” is a fiery throwback to the days of MORBID ANGEL and DEICIDE, with hooks that leave scars, belligerent, voice-of-god growls, and an ensemble performance that sounds earthy and live, despite its clinical execution.”Psalmus Mortis” reaches a peak of efficacy on “Machine”. A sprawling, nine-minute epic, it oozes dark drama and infernal menace but also adds a macabre cinematic quality to the band’s sound. As with each of these songs, “Machine” contains everything that a discerning tech-death disciple needs, and plenty more besides. RETROMORPHOSIS are honoring their own legacy by pushing it forward, and playing it harder, faster and with more untrammeled creativity than ever before. If you dig death metal, you need this in your life immediately.[embedded content]