Mortician - Re-Animated Dead Flesh (2004)

Mortician is a band that I can only take in small doses. Earlier, in the years prior to their full length excursions, I found them to be quite exhilarating as I have always been a sucker for a low-tuned, sludged out guitar sound and at that time no one came close to Mortician. I especially dug the slower moments where you felt as if you were being beaten to death in slo-mo beneath a strobe light. Muted chugging that bitch-slapped even the likes of Suffocation. Fast forward to the band's second full lenght, 'Chainsaw Dismemberment' and it was painfully obvious that the band had all but run out of ideas (though there was never a fucking shortage in insanity inducing movie intro's). I could tell that any semblance of clever riff configurations were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Let me point out that Mortician were never going to be the death metal equivalent of Rush as vocalist Will Rahmer's bass "skills" were extremely limited thus boxing in exceptionally talented guitarist, Roger Beaujard into a very small space with which to work within.

Needless to say, Mortician's next three albums were a trio of duds with maybe a riff or two worth note among them. Hardly a reason to go run out and join their fan club. Then... as if the band had been re-animated by Herbert West himself... "BANG!!!"... out comes the ironically titled 'Re-Animated Dead Flesh'! This was the full length that I was hoping to hear so long ago after having been brutalized by the 'Mortal Massacre' 7". The pointless and overlong intros are still here, to be sure, but the riffing and more importantly, the intent is far more severe than anything the band had released since '91. If this is to be the band's final album then I am happy to say that they went out on a high, er "low" note and more than made up for the previous snore-fests. By the way, SICK fucking album cover! Love the glowing green "Re-animator" style logo as well!

Mortician - Domain of Death (2001)

Mortician have always been extremely hit or miss with me. In the very beginning (or I should say, around the time 'Mortal Massacre' was released) I was drawn to them and completely obsessed with their mountainous guitar sound and Will's thunderous vocal rumblings. When they started to employ a drum machine for further recordings, I began to have my doubts. For the most part I didn't mind so much but every now and then I couldn't rid myself of the realization that everything sounded very cut and dry due to the 'click-clack' of the drum sound, not to mention that the programming wasn't the most imaginative I'd heard.

With those gripes aside, Mortician has always been a band that suffers from its excesses. Whether it's the 90 minute intros that bore me to violent fucking insanity or whether it's the almost mandatory inclusion of some of the most remedial sounding death metal (they call it grind, whatever) riffs accompanied by the lamest drum programming this side of a typist hopped up on a curious mixture of benzos and aderall, I've always felt that Mortician were better off releasing nothing more than 7"s as it would seem that when it comes time to gather the proper amount of material to justify a full length album, Will and the gang seemingly get caught off guard and resort to throwing any old fucking riff and lame ass pattern arrangement together in order to meet the deadline. I mean seriously, they go from one or two absolutely killer fucking death metal tracks with riffs that would laugh at the damage done in Moore, Oklahoma to some of the most ridiculously gay segments, so bad that I have to turn off the lights out of sheer embarrassment, cringing in the dark and hoping it will go away.

Now, I've always heard that the guitarist of Mortician had to dumb his shit down because the bass "skills" of vocalist and angry midget Will Rahmer were far from fucking exemplary. Having heard the guitarist's shit outside of Mortician, particularly Primitive Brutality, I would have to assume this to be true as quite clearly the guy knows how to handle his instrument. I can only imagine that he and Will are the best of friends as I can not come up with any other reason why he would subject himself to the mindlessness of this project. Again, I do like Mortician, but only in small doses and mainly for nostalgia. At my age now, I hardly have the patience or endurance levels for constant blast beats and such. Of course Mortician certainly divvies up the changes of tempo throughout, but the overall atmosphere (or lack thereof) comes across as monotonous nonetheless.

Also of note, Mortician's albums have a tendency of getting lamer than the last with this one gasping for air at the bottom of the barrel. It wouldn't be until the release of the appropriately titled, 'Re-Animated Dead Flesh' that the band would sound somewhat fresher and hungrier than they had since arguably the 'Zombie Apocalypse' -ep-.

Mortician - Mortal Massacre (1991)

I've always found it to be painfully tragic that the intros on any one Mortician release are usually, at the very least, double the length of the song itself. Of course, it doesn't help that the band persists on stuffing every last bit of useless dialogue into the equation rather than singling out and focusing on the "punchline" and then... ZAP! Instead, you're "treated" to having endure 5 casual minutes of breathing, footsteps, screaming, bad
acting and a wide array of sound effects until, finally, the band belts out a cool 52 second track for your listening displeasure.

Actually, aside from the endless amount of gratuitous intros, I quite like Mortician, though I've learned through the years that I can only tolerate them in extremely small doses, which is probably why I tend to favor their ep's over their full length endeavors, not to mention that the band's stronger material has almost predictably been released in 7" format. It seems like the band tends to drop the ball when coming up with an albums worth of material. That's not to say that there aren't prized gems to be found on any one of their LP's, but there usually tends to be a great deal of monotony as well, despite the speedy pace.

The fact that Mortician has been employing the services of a drum machine for the last 20 years hasn't bothered me in the slightest bit (though the band did have an actual drummer within their ranks on this 'ep' as well as their earlier material). I'm also not one of those people who cries and makes a big deal about bands who use triggers. There are far worse offenses committed in the metal world. The number one draw for me when it comes to Mortician is the band's ridiculously heavy sound. I remember thinking how much of an improvement 'Mortal Massacre' was over the 'Brutally Mutilated' ep, not to mention the fact that Will Rahmer's vocals took a turn for the ungodly the second time around.

Where Mortician truly succeeds is when they drop the tempo and proceed to slowly chug your ass to death. I mean, seriously, when you have a guitar sound that fucking heavy, you owe it to the listener to pummel them into a hot red sticky mush with a generous assault of down picked mutes embellished by an inhumanly low and ghoulish vocal croak that lasts the duration.

I believe Mortician would be taken a bit more seriously if they would cut out 3/4's of the intro's and perhaps weed out a bit of their weaker fare. When it comes to heaviness and primal brutality, I'd much rather listen to Mortician than any one of the 90,000,00 'D' bands that hail from Texas and California, but unfortunately, when I am actually in the mood for this style of music, I don't want to sit through 5-10 minutes of some low budget intro to finally get the ball rolling. It's like watching a program on one of those channels that persist on shoving a commercial down your throat every 5 minutes.