Review Summary: Mental Vortex - A fantastic musical vortex
Coroner, a band so legendary and influential that nobody knows them. Yeah, that's very sad. It's also a harshly negative thing to say but it's frustrating to see such an amazing group go under the radar. Even though this age of internets we dwell in has certainly brought them more on the map it's not enough, man, not enough. Coroner are currently having a reunion and judging by live performances they still got it. With their high-class body of work it must be just pure fun.
Mental Vortex was released in 1991, long after the initial thrash metal movement had moved on. The album still has a thrash metal backbone but has the dark and interesting elements of the Coroner sound that only they seem to be able to conjure up. With this album they take these sinister elements even further, embracing the cool and unique weirdness in their writing.
With Mental Vortex they started moving away from the wildness of their playing on earlier albums. It's less aggressive in the bash-everything-as-fast-as-possible way and SO MUCH more aggressive in a truly scary way. Not that the album would scare the listener away, not at all. Once the guitars kick in on ”Divine Step” you'll be moshing in awe to the tightness and controlled mayhem.
The production is a big step forward from the album that came before this. Of course the dirtier sounds supported the atmosphere of their work in the 80's but I for one love the new Coroner sound that brings an almost clinical feeling to it. Clinical in a good way, like the difference between a reckless chainsaw murderer and velvet-gloved ruthless assassin ninja master.
It seems there's less riffs in the songs in general but I think it's only an illusion caused by the fact that guitarist Tommy Vetterli's riffs are so badass and professionally written. It doesn't happen to every band but it happened to Coroner - the more they wrote material, the stronger it gradually got. It feels like the band wasn't afraid of change and just went at it writing the best material they could write. They also seem to utilize the mindset ”less is more, if the less is better than the more was” here.
A special mention must be said about bassist/vocalist Ron Broder. He seems to me like a really egoless musician whose sole purpose is to make the song as great as possible, be it his bass playing or vocals. His lines complement the guitar nicely. His voice is more controlled and make the album sound so much more evil than before.
All in all this is a fantastic heavy metal album that stays true to it's roots but brings a boundary breaking attitude to the table creating a really unique atmosphere.
