RETROMORPHOSIS - Psalmus Mortis

Essentially Swedish tech-death legends Spawn Of Possession born anew, Retromorphosis may be a new name in underground circles, but the metallic pedigree in their ranks brings a weight of expectation only reserved for legitimate scene legends (especially since the last record delivered by four-fifths of this lineup was the flat out classic Incurso twelve years ago). Anyone in the know would hardly expect a cast of such highly evolved shredders to lazily pick up where they left off, and whilst Psalmus Mortis does tread some familiar ground, it also injects fresh dynamics into SOP’s reanimated remains and awakens a somewhat remodelled beast.     

Opening with a sub-two minute explosion of finger-blurred riffing, ‘Obscure Exordium’ eases us in as a brief hors d’oeuvre before ‘Vanished’ boots off in punishing fashion, all spiralling guitar leads and jaw-clamping intricacies. It’s swiftly clear however that what sets this batch of tunes apart from the band's previous incarnation is, despite their instrumentally pristine and precise assault, they still sound remarkably tethered to the old-school. Indeed, even as the likes of ‘The Tree’ maintain a warped, futuristic undercurrent of surrealist horror, a welcomely raw and earthy production job leaves plenty of gore under the fingernails and keeps all listening musos firmly in check - for all its scorched earth technically, Psalmus Mortis is first and foremost an ugly, violent death metal record. 

Add to this a healthy dollop of eerily gothic, Cradle of Filth-esque keys, and there’s a new grandiloquence here that helps to slam home the atmospheric hell-fire of these tracks, with cuts such as ‘Aunt Christine’s Will’ aglow with a choral spookiness that again calls to mind the synth-led fog of extreme metals formative years, with shades of Morbid Angel pomp, in particular, dragging us just that bit further into the band's sonic netherworld of throwback delights.  And so, while Retromorphosis does an immaculate job at harnessing all the subtle detours, scalpel-keen dynamics and compositional mastery a fan could demand from tech-death maestros of this calibre, the steely core of Psalmus Mortis remains just as focused on red-blooded, classic death metal songwriting as it does virtuoso ripping and prog ingenuity, and is all the more thrilling for it. Death-heads take note, this one is essential.

8.5/10