Scrolls of the Megilloth

I don't know where to begin with this album. When I first heard it, I was blown away by the sound. I have never heard any other death metal album that sounded quite like this one. It soon became my number one favorite death metal album. All of the members of the band are at their prime on this album. Scrolls of the Megilloth is, without a doubt, the heaviest album by Mortification within their entire discography. Unfortunately, they have been living this album down ever since it was released in 1992. Mortification's first few albums can be considered their best but this one stands out among those albums and even makes its own mark on death metal worldwide. If you didn't know, Mortification is a Christian band; their lyrics are usually centered around Christian themes or God. Now with that in mind, I find it impressive that this album is considered a cult classic even amongst non-Christian death metalheads. But anyway, enough about the band's history; let's start talking about the actual album.

The first thing I have to mention is Steve Rowe's vocals. Steve maintains a very deep and guttural growl throughout the entire album with some minor variations in certain songs like Ancient Prophesy or Nocturnal. What makes Steve's vocals in this albums so special, in my opinion, is that he somehow manages to enunciate the words he's saying and yet maintain a very deep and guttural growl. It's as if someone were talking to you rather than a death metal vocalist doing a death metal vocal for the sake of death metal vocals. That right there is one of the reasons this album is so heavy. I still have yet to hear a vocalist as frightening as Steve Rowe's vocals on this album. The only one that comes close is Glen Benton from Deicide's first two albums, but even then I don't find those vocals as dark and frightening as Steve Rowe's on SotM.

As for the instrumentation, the rhythm guitarist, Michael Carlisle, does an amazing job of creating some dark and eerie riffs. Songs like Death Requiem, Necromanicide, and Eternal Lamentation feature some really dark sounding riffs that will sort place you within the story of the lyrics when you hear them. It should be noted that there aren't any guitar solos on this album, but if you're like me, you won't mind. Jayson Sherlock was the drummer for Mortification for the first three albums before moving on to other projects. He does a fantastic job on this album. You can hear the intensity in each song as well as the technicality. The drumming isn't just straight death metal drumming (although it can be on a couple songs). Jayson has some odd time signatures when it comes to his blast beats but somehow it fits and sound brutal.

If you like death metal then I would recommend you go to Amazon, or wherever else, and buy the album. This album should be on the shelf of any death metalhead.

This is Mortification's second album which was originally released in August of 1992. It is their follow to the 1991 self titled debut.

This disc contains full on death metal with hardly any thrash influences present and incorporates some grindcore and doom influences. This is considered by many fans as the band's best work and is certainly their heaviest material to date.

The album begins with night noises to create a rather dark and sort of eerie atmosphere. Then the faint sound of drums works its way in and gets progressively louder with each pounding beat which then leads into a sinister Drop D tuned riff. This is the opening track appropriately titled Nocturnal. The rest of the album flows very well with alot of nice tempo changes to keep the listening experience interesting. Steve Rowe utilizes a rather frightening grind baritone death growl that is double layered as well as being accompanied by shrieking background vocals from both Michael Carsile and Jayson Sherlock. Also Steve's bass playing prowess comes through very strong throughout the entire album as it is both clearly audible and skillful.

Michael Carsile's rhythm work is aggressively executed yet precise. In fact, enough to even make up for the lack of guitar solos on this album as he is more experienced as a rhythm genius instead of a lead player.

And of course you have the world renowned Jayson Sherlock behind the drum kit. His incredibly fast and accurate blast beats and double bass kicks are actually one of the highlights of this release as a whole. His remarkable changes in tempo are among the best this subgenre has to offer.

The production, although not stellar, still holds up pretty well for an early 90's death metal offering. My favorites are Nocturnal, Terminate Damnation, Eternal Lamentations, and Necromanicide. The album ends with an 11 minute mid tempo epic titled Ancient Prophecy which I think ends the album perfectly.

In conclusion, Scrolls of the Megilloth is a vital piece of extreme metal history in the realm of Christian metal as well as the secular scene. Get this if you enjoy good quality old school death metal whether you concur with their profound Christian beliefs or not.

While I can't give Mortification total credit for originality, this is a good album. With this thing out on Nuclear Blast records, I can see how this album alone solidified Mortification's reputation as a strong band. I've heard a bit of their work since, which doesn't come close at all.

Every instrument here is a strong point. Even Steve's bass, which I've always enjoyed for it's rather loud quality, stands out, growling along strongly a bit above the guitars. The guitars roar with Old Testament fire and brimstone vengeance, picks reduced to dust in a tremolo fury...just like all those bad boy Satanic bands! When they slow down for a doomier part, it comes across really heavy, and they tend to explore the slower, crushing tempos a good deal. Solos are insane tapping and whammy dives, not too much the classy type, but who gives a fuck?

The drummer, Jason Sherlock, is very competent. His blasts never fall out of time, and he uses fills effectively. He's not overly technical, more of a Gene Hoglan powerful style.

Steve's vocals are your typical death grunt, sort of like Kam Lee with a cold, but drier. It certainly fits the music quite well, and hey! You can't really understand what he's saying, anyway.

If you want to dismiss this band just because their lyrics, you're an absolute fool. This album is quite far from sucking. Not the most original, but certainly enjoyable.

Believe it or not, there was a (mercifully brief) time that I listened to Christian metal, oxymoron though most of it is, after my grandmother passed away 12 years ago. I was fumbling and latched onto Christianity as a way of coping--and ditched it promptly once I discovered what those folks are all about. And I am still venomously, vigorously anti-Christian to this day. But damned if this album isn't pretty good!

Let's get the bad parts out of the way first--the vocals are absolute tripe, worse than anything Chris Barnes ever puked up while cupping his microphone. And obviously effected out to the max, whie I'm at it. That and the heavy-handed uber-Christian lyrical content get points knocked off this review. And while the musicianship is mostly excellent (especially Steve Rowe's bass prowess--he makes up for his vocals with this and how), I can hear the blast beats coming unglued here and there, so they could have been tighter on those parts. Other than those things, this is a worthy album musically.

Case in point: "Terminate Damnation" starts out with a furious blasting intro that goes into a (cheesey) death groan and lyrics declaiming with a vengeance as a slow, double kick-fuelled crunch riff starts up--perfect pit fodder, this tune is!--and goes back into the blast beats, then back into more of a standard thrash part. The thundering middle part, where Rowe declares "The ostentatiousness of Satan has been rendered to the burial ground!" will get you banging as long as you don't pay too much heed to the lyrics. The guitar tone is a nasty, hollow crunch reminiscent of Swedish death metal, and really drives the point home on that part.

"Raise The Chalice" gets to showcase Rowe's bass work, and has a somewhat unique feature in that after each chorus there is a brief part of nothing but blast beat drumming and precise, neat bass shredding somewhat reminiscent of Manowar's legendary Joey DeMaio--Rowe is a badass on the bass, with his clean, trebly-yet-resonant tone showing he is not fooling around here. You also get to hear him go for it on the between verse parts of "Eternal Lamentation", another full-on thrasher with Jayson Sherlock stomping the crap out of his kick pedals. The production and mix on this album is excellent, too, I might add. "Inflamed" has a nice spoken word part in the middle that is slightly buried in the mix, but has a eerie feeling to it as Rowe's real voice comes through to declare the merits of faith.

As I said, the lyrics are heavy-handed to say the least, and that bothers me, as do trhe vocals. But other than that, this is musically a strong album that will motivate you to at least give this band a chance. The music makes up for the lyrics, anyway, and let the record show that I am an atheist by Christian standards. Crank it up so I can sin some more, yo!