Mortician

Zombie Apocalypse

(c)(p)1998 Relapse Records

Review by Neil St.Laurent

Thanks to Relapse for the CD

Mortician, the grinding death act out of Yonkers, is back to assault us with "Zombie Apocalypse". Although a turbulent past for the band and its members, the duo of Will Rahmer and Roger Beaujard, and this time joining them on guitars is Desmond Tolhurst (who formerly lent the band recording equipment), manage to pump out ten ear bleeding songs, including covers of "Fuck Of Death" and "Horrified" by Slaughter and Horrified respectively.

Clocking in at just under 28 minutes, this isn't a very long offering, and as to be described, it isn't a lot of music. Opening up with some slashing sounds, set against a classic star trek type clipping and other sounds, "Devoured Alive" breaks into a furious assault from the drum machine, not quite matched by the guitars in speed. The mindless barrage continues into "Incinerated", then the pace is broken by yet another sampled interlude leading into "Zombie Apocalypse", "...when there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth". And after the next song comes a very long Hellraiser sample introducing "Hell On Earth", more of the blasting drums layered onto the slow rhythmic guitaring.

Other than the samples, the vocals throughout the album are basically unintelligable, but they are of a pleasant guttural growling, almost croaking at times (ala Avulsion or Demilich). This isn't too bad though, because you may not really want to know the lyrics anyway, very extreme classic death metal descriptions of burning corpses, strewn entrails, and other such disturbing (or possibly comforting) images.

It'd be easier to reach some sort of conclusion about the music if there was more of it. Combined with two cover songs, the large amount of sampling doesn't leave too much original material to be heard. All the songs follow the same structure with only moderately divergent riffs, leaning more to the grindcore genre than any other. Tough to call, you'll have to check it out to determine whether or not you'll appreciate it.

Mortician is:
Will Rahmer - Bass, Vocals
Roger J. Beaujard - Guitars, Drum Programming
Desmond Tolhurst - Guitars

Contact:
Mortician
c/o Will Rahmer
200 Roundhill Rd.
Yonkers, NY 10710
USA

Email: cremated@aol.com
Web: http://members.aol.com/cremated/

Available from Relapse Records

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