MORTUARY REVIEW

By now seen as death metal gentry, Mexican maniacs Mortary give us slices of their mastery so far and far between over the decades yet are still met with much anticipation and applause when they finLly get around to it. With 1990's highly-revered "Blackened Images" seeming to come out a lifetime ago yet put them on the map as a rising underground force this latest EP "Great Black Earth" will have to hold us over for now and hopefully not all the way until the end times.

Slowly churning malignang strings and plenty of drum fills abound with punchy bass give "Holy War" (with the original version dating back to 2021) that classic 90s deathrash confluence sound. With a slight doom-tinge well before the speed and gallops kick in "Cut Their Heads" and checks out with a sample of thunderstorms. Next the title track chugs and soars and wails into a swirl of chaos, vocals showing an abundance of aggression and despair that run together very well. In closing we have "Black Superstition" with was also released as a single shortly before The EP was upon us and has all of the classic thrash markings from almost every regional scene be it Bay Area, Teutonic, or Brazilian and add their own wizardry to it all that made them a veritable force over thirty years ago, and now we can only hope that long gaps between releases have their window shortened for the greater good of all things underground!

Regardless of long stretches between releases of any kind and however brief, Mortuary still retain that ancient, desolate, thrashy sound that can be distinctly Latin American and also keep up with Teutonic and Floridian thrash and death elements to give us more of their brutal savagery. It's a pretty foolproof formula and one that they can wield with much pride and hubris.

8/10