Morpheus Descends - The Horror of the Truth (1997)

Having never been the biggest fan of Morpheus Descends (previously and simply... Morpheus) I was absolutely fucking blown away by this three song 'ep'. I actually received a copy of this CD from the guys themselves at a show that my old band had played in upstate New York. By this time the band hand been widdled down to a four-piece with Tom (Nokturnal) Stevens taking over the mic. I was in no way prepared for Tom's bestial and demonic vocal delivery nor was I expecting to hear the absolutely vile and blasphemous style of death metal that these guys had been crafting since their last ep, the much heralded 'Chronicles of the Shadowed Ones'.

Again, I could never really get into what these guys were doing before this as a large portion of their songs I found to be rather boring. 'The Horror of the Truth', however, changed all that. What I was hearing on this ep gave Incantation a run for their fucking money in regards to the "evil" doom/death sweepstakes. The more "haunting" sounding tremolo riffing lays waste to any number of current Incantation wanna-be's, while the slower, doomier sections are absolutely staggering. This is one of those rare releases that truly captures the essence of "evil" sounding death metal.

I cannot praise highly enough the vocal performance of Mr. Stevens. Previous MD vocalists were 'ok' but nothing special. Tom's lows are absolutely putrid while his highs are soul piercingly vile and are a joy to behold when going "tit for tat" with the lower register. I was beyond bummed as the years passed and the band never followed this up with anything. Both Tom and bassist/guitarist Rob Yench would lend their services to none other than Incantation throughout the years though neither would stick around for long as is the usual for that band. This is pretty unfortunate as Tom's voice would have made the last three Incant albums sound 100 times better (I'm not a fan of John McEntee's vocals... at all), though I did get to see him with them back in '99 at the first 'Metal Meltodown' festival in New Jersey.

With all of these false prophets preaching the word of 'OSDM', this 'ep' should serve as the perfect device to weed out the weak as I can guaran-fucking-tee you, not one of these revivalist bands can match up to its might!