Moral Collapse is about to release its first album.
Soberly entitled Moral Collapse, it is born from the collaboration between Arun Natarajan (vocals/guitar/bass, Eccentric Pendulum), Sudarshan Mankad (guitar, Infamy) and Hannes Grossman (drums, Triptykon, Alkaloid, Blotted Science, ex-Obscura, ex-Necrophagist, ex-Hate Eternal…).
It seems that the pandemic stimulated musicians’ abilities because it is between India and Germany that the three musicians composed this album. The band stated they wanted to link Old School fierce sonorities with Jazz eccentricity, and their highly technical melting is a Progressive Death Metal with many influences, released on Subcontinental Records, label run by Arun Natarajan. To the band’s line-up, we add guitarists Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia), Bobby Koelble (ex-Death, live for Nader Sadek), Tony Das (Bhoomi, Thermal And A Quarter) and Michael Wöß (Agathodaimon, Omega Point) for some leads, as well as Julius Gabriel (saxophone) and Mia Zabelka (violin).
The album is perfectly balanced: a short introduction that melts oppression and saturated noises entitled Anechoic (Initiation), three songs, a strange and scary interlude named Vermicularis (Interruption), three songs again, then a long dark and intriguing outro melting instruments noises and whispers, called Trapped Without Recourse (Rumination).
If the introduction, the interlude and the final part offer some quite chaotic noisy elements, the other compositions are very precise. Abandoned Rooms Of Misspelled Agony begins fastly, unleashing a massive strength between cavernous howlings and a heavy rhythmic with very technical influences, placing fast-paced leads before being joined by a saxophone, while dissonance reigns on Your Stillborn Be Praised, a quite Old School song based on raw strength, while keeping complexity. Suspension Of Belief is next, making the musicians whole creativity explode on an instrumental composition before the interlude. Death Metal comes back with Sculpting The Womb Of Misery, a song that picks into raging melodic influences, but also the groovy To The Blind, All Things Sudden and its sharp harmonics. The rhythmic is quite threatening, while Denier Of Light offers some attractive tones, even some dancing ones sometimes, and the contrast with complex parts is impressive. The album ends after four minutes of an unhealthy outro.
Moral Collapse’s members’ experience allows them to make Moral Collapse a very rich album. Compositions allow us no dead time, while linking technicality, melodicity and rage.
80/100