Review: Mortify ‘Fragments At The Edge Of Sorrow’

Intense synth atmospheres and dramatic vocals open this album with the track Beneath The Emptiness. The riffing arrives sounding really crisp, with clear production, welcoming us and quickly shuffling us into a blast beat. The guitar tones bring me back to some classic sounds from the 90s. As the song goes on, the wealth of riffs and song sections lean heavily on technical and progressive, sometimes leading into death black territory.

Mortify 'Fragments At The Edge Of Sorrow'

In The Amorphous Path drops the tempo for good effect, with the vocals straddling an old school death and doom metal sound. I’m not opposed to the more progressive tendencies of Mortify’s sound, but I find myself wishing they’d spend a little more time on their best sounding parts. Ethereal Illusion Of Psyche treads a very similar formula but with a tighter song structure that is way more effective although Fragments is a pretty unnecessary interlude.

Frayed Lunacy (Dying Sight) stays true to their love for abundant riffs. Some are certainly more powerful than others, but the sheer abundance doesn’t necessarily make, or even facilitate, tighter songwriting. Tight songwriting is the achievement that death metal bands, in general, seem to only unlock after decades in the trenches of underground extreme metal. The drummer is doing a lot of work, but the drums are not the best part of the mix, rendering a lot of it more distracting than engaging.

Mindloss works great as an instrumental, probably my favorite track. Riffing is intricate without losing power and the song flows with ease. The Accursed And The Throes opens up crushing on the start of the second half of the album. Mortify is a solid band capable of a powerful classic death doom sound. Edge, a second interlude, is again not doing very much.

Mortify is a solid band capable of a powerful classic death doom sound…

Astral Sphere From A Bleeding Soul is very traditional. There is intense guitar work, and a lot of time was clearly spent on producing the guitar parts, although the overall result fails to hold our attention effectively. Bass and drum sounds are where this band could still improve. They are of high quality, but the mix of the drums can be rather disconcerting.

Then comes Process In A Secrecies Of Thought and Contaminated Echoes. The songs sometimes do run long, as does the album and overall, they could benefit from a producer to help establish and polish a collection of songs to transmit a clearer vision of the band. I understand this is a conceptual work and these are the intricacies of the style, but I just wish I could remember more about this album after it’s over.

Mortify could have very well left all the synths, interludes, and about half the tracks at home in Concepción and delivered a crushing badass death doom album with a classic sound. Mortify, for the completists out there, is a collaboration between members of Socialisis with Cristian Fuentes, also of Worms, on guitar and vocals.

Label: Chaos Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram

Scribed by: Goro Riffs