My first exposure to Sweden’s Blood Mortized came by way of the 2012 EP Bestial, and subsequent album, The Key to A Black Heart , a solid but unspectacular addition to the Swedish death metal revival and . Since then  the band members have been busy with other projects including super group Just Before Dawn and the reborn Malfeitor.

But even with all that I wasn’t super stoked for this follow up full length album, considering the quality and quantity of this years Stockholm inspired crop (Entrails, Harm, Lifeless, Wound, Revel in Flesh, Ulcer, Tormented and Rogga Johanssen’s 56 other bands), I was a little burnt out. However, it turns out that The Demon, The Angel, The Disease is an utterly fucking killer addition, improve on the EP in every conceivable way and instantly puts Blood Mortized in the same conversation as Entrails.

Yeah, this is that good. With a massively improved, huge, typically  mid range production, simply killer, classic Stockholm riffs that mingle catchy gallops and massive lurches, Blood Mortized has delivered an absolute stunner of an album from pretty well nowhere after a simply solid EP. Even with obvious nods to the classic bands (Grave, Entombed, Dismember, Unleashed),  The Demon, The Angel, The Disease forges its own path on the strength of the song writing and riffs.  And the secret (other than the killer production)  is that aforementioned balance of mid paced rumbles and classic canters that deliver the album’s serial killer based concept.

The album’s two standouts (in my opinion) “Master of Pain”, and ” Noise Terror” deliver absolutely stunning examples of the latter, with cantankerous,chunky,  catchy main riffs straight from Left Hand Path, Clandestine or You’ll Never See. Then you have the likes of “My Soul, Your Flesh”  and a couple of tracks in the albums’s second half in “Barbarian Lust”, the title track and 8 minute closer “I Leave With Hate” which deliver almost Hail of Bullets like rumbles with huge mid paced to slow moments, complete with some classic 90s atmospherics. Of course, there are a few high octane chuggers like first single, “Bastard“, “I am the Dead” and “Blessed are the Dead”, and tracks that have a little or everyhting in between like  “Black Flames of Desolation”, “Dysphoria, Dystopia”  and another classic sounding standout, “Blood Drenched Stones”.

Blood Mortized has elbowed their way into the upper echelon of 2013s Swedish death metal releases as The Demon, The Angel, The Disease goes toe to toe with the likes of Entrails‘ Raging Death and Demonical‘s Darkness Unbound. I’d look for a step up in label soon if this continues.

[Visit the band's website]

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