Morbid Saint - Spectrum Of Death Review

Morbid Saint Spectrum Of Death

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Tracklist:
Lock Up Your Children
Burned At The Stake
Assassin
Damian
Crying For Death
Spectrum Of Death
Scars
Beyond The Gates Of Hell

Release Date: 1988

user rating

4.3
superb

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4.5
superb

Dethtrasher USER (224 Reviews)

2006-08-02 | 24 comments | 6,329 views

2 of 2 thought this review was well written

HISTORY
We have gathered here today to take farewell of the extreme thrash-metal band Morbid Saint, this band came to earth and disappeared equally as fast, but they left one single album to this world. The band is claimed to have played some sort of hardcore/speed-metal and others has claimed that they played extreme thrash-metal. It sounds like a mix between Dark Angel and Kreator and if you have heard any of these bands you can imagine how this may sound, I think that it sounds more like thrash-metal with some splashes from death-metal and black-metal vocal work.

THE CREW
This was very interesting I must say, the album contains energetic, full-assault, aggressive metal. The paces are very fast, the guitar work is also very intesive. The bass does also shines through in the songs which was a bit surprising and the vocals suited brilliant in the songs. We begin to look at the vocalist Pat Lind, his vocals is a mix between Mille Petrozza and Don Doty. The vocals are pretty sinister, impish and whiny but yet highly aggressive, the vocals has serious attitude and it really does this album to a unique one. Jay Visser and Ji Fergades are the two guitarists, their guitar style is also aggressive, intensive and quite technical. The rhythm sections are rock-solid and there is also room for catchy tunes and brutally heavy riffing. The solos are pretty good, but if you thought that the solos were melodic stuff you are wrong. The solos are very chaotic, pretty frantic and they are also quite high-pitched time to time, though these guitarists did a great work in this album. The bassist Mike Chappy did very good in this album too, his bass stands out equally as much as the guitars. The bass helps to build up a heavy rhythm section and it makes more brutal, rawer and thicker sound, I was really surprised that the bass was this loud. Usually the bass is always faded away by the rest of the instruments in lots of other bands but this was very enjoying, trust me. And at last we have the drummer Lee Raynolds, like any thrash-metal drummer Lee delivers intensive beats and heavy drum patterns, you can actually say that this guy is almost as good as Gene Hoglan. Anyway, this dude did his performance with excellence and precision.

THINGS I LIKED
Let me tell you some things that I enjoyed and disliked about this album. The things I thought were great about this album was many things, we can start with the vocals which I think is the most unique part in a band. The vocals was as I said very aggressive, impish, sinister and a bit whiney. But the vocals suited very good to the music and it made the album sound special, I think that both thrash, death and black-metal would enjoy this kind of vocals. The second thing I thought were great was the great thrashing energy in the songs, every song had a good structure and most of them had catchy rhythm sections and riffing. The sound was sometimes near to enter the territoriums of death-metal but the band had a good ability to make the sound as ''thrashy'' as they could.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
One thing I didn't like was...The band does not exist anymore! It so sad that this band disbanded just after one album, the band had a future with this album if you ask me. This album was nealry perfect extreme thrash that would even grab people from the death and black-metal genres but the band had other thougts. The second thing I didn't enjoyed so much was the production, the music sounded great but the soudn felt a bit blury, not high-quality production though. And the last thing is not a big deal but the album cover is highly uninteresting, it doesn't look like an intersting album with that white-haired half-rotten corpse. Maybe cool at that time but it doesn't look great in this day though.

CONCLUSION
I hope this was as accurate as possible and I hope it wasen't to boring to read, this was the best I could come up with about this band. This was very enjoying in my ears, to bad that they only did one single album. This is one undiscovered gem in the world of metal and I think it needs to be discovered by so many metal-heads as possible. It may not be a unique or ice-breaking album but it will make your metal-coolection a whole lot better. People who likes early Dark Angel and early Kreator should get this album because it has loads of aggressive energy and cool vocals, many would think that these vocals would sound like other singers but this band was still classified as a thrash-metal band. Death and black-metal people should check this out too, you either love or hate but at least give this band and album a chance. This band and their only album must be remembered, it must not be forgotten by the fans of metal.

RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Assassin
-- Scars
-- Damien
-- Burned At The Stake

REASON FOR THE RATING
For being an aggressive and intensive album with unique vocals for the genre and for being the only album from a short-lived band this album will be given a proud and memorable 4.5/5. I will not give it a full score because the band did just release one album and we will never know how other albums would've sounded like.

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