An album title like ”Vulgar Darkness” doesn’t BS about how it’s gonna sound. And for damned sure, those seven cuts on Morbid Execution‘s first, brief full-length literally spike up my morning coffee with a certain pinch of whiskey. Those Polish dudes evidently primarily hail from a punk background, and strong Motorhead worship. Throw in a good amount of influence from the likes of Sodom, and even a down-tempo vintage doom twist on some of the neat tricks the licks occasionally pull throughout this piece of work (these somewhat even go as far as screaming Celtic Frost at times). Throw in some inhuman 90s black metal wails that are impressive in how high they reach in terms of a range, and wrap this whole packaging into a reasonably oldschool production that enhances the vileness of the vibe we have here, giving a thick and imposing presence to the riffs and the low-end, whilst this aptly varied and energized drumming throws the punches sharp and clear. It all has a rehearsal space feel and bleeds attitude in a strongly organic and enjoyable way. That being said, it only serves to put these guys’ sound on-track, unveiling its general direction, but I get this nagging feeling that it hasn’t fully sunken in or developped yet; nevertheless, it’s off to a killer start, when unpredictability and nuanced songwriting are the main characteristics grabbing the steering wheel.

”Twisted Maniacs” has this familiar blackened punk rock drumbeat underneath a cobweb of slightly atonal and Misfits-tinged groove-riffs, topped by a vomitous vocal, rolled up into a 2.58 lifespan that works well, without a doubt. It’s definitely treading the waters of deja-vu, but it’s also well-done, and this cleverly balanced production creates an authentic three-dimensional feel that makes all the instruments stick right out, bringing you to that one room where these chaps have a blast paying homage to their blatant, albeit respectable heroes. ”Wizards of Silesia” suggests more of a refined, custom, and in-depth dive into what this band does for the vast majority of this record in an interesting and well thought-out manner; meshing those sickly, down-tuned, and positively impure 70s horror-inspired doom flourishes with the strung-out-and-high punk rebel groove, and a generous helping of old school death metal filth to cap it all off. Morbid Execution simply ace this stylistic approach and they seriously fucking party hard with their possibilities, whilst not straying from their ancient and ghoulish direction.

When they come up with this type of sound, all guns blazing, the result is a very nifty one, and I’ll gladly have more records stacked up on the desk that sound exactly like this; it’s a breath of genuinely intoxicating air for the nostalgia of the blackened thrash and black n’ roll tenancies of the Old Wave of British Heavy Metal-influenced extreme metal acts, when bands like Venom stepped up at the top of the totem pole. The accurately-titled ”Rusted and Demonized” has this suspenseful intro riff, developping into this 300-ton-heavy and menacing layout. This is very satisfying, great down-tempo death that harkens straight back to its early incarnations. It has this psychedelic and poignant feel sweating out of its every pore, and that’s exactly what makes an album of this type a memorably cool one. The very desolate guitarwork around the 2.11 minute-mark goes into one massively hollow and positively beastly build-up, led by a vocal delivery that’s simply more demented than ever. The drumming, much like in the previous track, is original, and dynamic in its technique shifts.

”Dreadful Romance”, more than ever, brings Mötorhead to mind. It actually pans out to be a cross between English punk-infused wall-to-wall rockin’, and heavily schizoid death metal rains of punches that simply don’t allow one hint of a last breath to happen; it all sure as heck doesn’t forgive. The mish-mash of such aggression and catchy, booze-soaked rock and roll is an endlessly brilliant idea that I fully endorse. The atonal and quite singular riffage slaughtering on throughout is seriously entertaining to listen to, and the feel is, yet again, on the primitive and crazy side of the pond. The last three cuts, much to my surprise, are a touch less fervently vivifying. ”Hell’s Driven Anger” goes back to that gloomy, blackened punk n’ roll foundation, which is all well and good when it escalates into a bigger picture, but it sounds a touch linear this time ’round, much like in the first cut, where it breezed past without leaving much of a deep mark. It’s still fun to listen to, but fails to grab my attention as much as the previous bunch of kickass tunes. It’s reasonably catchy at first, but happens to get repetitive quick.

”Remain Breathless”s main groove is a totally killer one and amps up my enthusiasm right out of the gate, recurring all through the song in such a way that it makes the entirety of it a hell of an engaging number. The vocal seems to enhance it’s ballsy grit, and the licks ’round that main force of an accessible main part are quite absorbing and hitting the nail on the head effortlessly.It starts to feel like it’s about to get stuck in a repetitive loop about 2 minutes in, but when that swinging main riff crawls back in, it’s easy to picture a couple rooms in the vacation house blowing up, and a dizzyingly messy zombie pit advancing up front. ”Vulgar Darkness”, on the other hand, may have a downpaced and bleak stroll I tend to like coming from these guys (when the riffs actually hit home with a direction and a creative structure), but in the case of this track, I’m hearing fatigue and bitter flatness. The intro riff gets caught in a bit of a mechanical and repetitive pattern, kicking back into verses that may have a nicely atonal and beautifully devoid-of-all-life layering, but that still fails to get me as enthusiastic as I still am about the promising beginning of this relatively cool album.

As stated above, Morbid Execution sure as hell know where they come from, and they’ve loaded up their machine guns and built their mantraps to catch all possible posers in style with this record; nevertheless, I somewhat expect their second outing will be a much more mind-boggingly elaborate one. Bring it on, what I’m hearing around these parts is, for the most part, quite rad.

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