Cursed

With their promising EPs "Resurrection Absurd" and "The Eternal Fall", released in 1989 and 1990, Morgoth stood in the shadow of their big idols Death and the uprising European force Pestilence. In 1991, they tried to step out of this shadow by releasing a full-length album with a doomier approach. I remember that I was a bit underwhelmed when I bought the album, and more than 30 years later it is easy to see why: "Cursed", while being a good album, still stands in the shadow of its more prominent contemporaries.

The slight inconsistency of the album is rooted in the fact that the crushing midtempo parts and the doom parts with a sickened dreaming lead guitar are mere additions without defining a new and own style. Morgoth have clearly listened to Autopsy and Paradise Lost, but they don't dare to move into this direction very far. Also, they don't reach the sonic radicalism of Asphyx. Rather, "Cursed" stays very conventional even for 1991's standards, but is, on the other hand, not as brutal and coherent as, for instance, Grave's debut album "Into the Grave", which was released in the same year. Sometimes, nicely played acoustic guitars pop up, but they are nowhere near as atmospheric as those on Tiamat's "The Astral Sleep", to name another album released in 1991.

Nonetheless, I enjoy to listen to "Cursed" every now and then, also due to the fact that the vocalist Marc Grewe continued to sound like the German brother of Schuldiner on this album. Two years later, Morgoth returned with a radically different sound. I think they never really unfolded their full potential as a death metal band. For me, Fleshcrawl became the kings of German death metal shortly after with their stellar debut album.

All in all, "Cursed" is a somewhat pale album, but it belongs to the good and worthy products of a time when death metal was both brutal and melodic without needing cheesy categorizations such as "brutal death metal" or "melodeath".

Entombed’s “Left Hand Path” was my bible of extreme metal for some years in the early nineties and the decline of classic thrash made it necessary to look out for new shores. At that time, death metal was less stale than it is today (in my humble opinion) and Morgoth received a lot of praise in the German RockHard magazine. This was normally rather a disadvantage than a reason to check them out and the fact that they originated more or less in the neighbourhood of the Dortmund-located magazine did not make things better. However, it came the day that I bought “Cursed” and only 30 years later, here is the review.

Honestly speaking, it is nice to listen to this album but simultaneously hard to find any spectacular feature. Morgoth celebrate more or less cosy death metal which commutes between relatively expressionless mid-tempo parts and high velocity outbursts. The guitar work is as ordinary as it can be, few exceptions confirm the norm. I don’t say that it is bad music. Every ordinary metal album is still lightyears above any release that features another style. Nevertheless, at least from today’s perspective, I miss some characteristics I appreciate in terms of extreme metal. “Cursed” does not sound ecstatic, unbridled or unscrupulous. To tell the truth, it also does not offer a sleeping pill in sonic form, it is somewhere in between. The level of harshness is neither mind-blowingly heavy nor obviously too mild and some solos (“Opportunity is gone”) surprise with an almost inadequate appearance in view of their melodic outfit. In general, the song patterns are decent, complexity does not really matter and catchy lines surface sporadically. Both the stage-setting intro and the atmospheric outro do their job pretty good, but the main part of the material remains somewhat flat. Where is the deadly, thundering and fatalistic aura that real death metal needs?

But maybe it’s not fair to speak about a nearly 30 years old album in this way. “Cursed” was a child of its time and it represents state of the art death metal of 1991. “Body Count”, the first regular track, opens the album with some quite vehement parts and the lead vocalist shows right from the beginning that he can torture his throat in a professional manner. The choruses of “Isolated” (this song begins with a Candlemass-inspired guitar intro) and “Sold Baptism” do not lack recognition value and my highlight is exactly this song: “Sold Baptism”. Its swift verses offer the liveliest guitar line of the entire album, the tempo shifts lend a dramatic touch and, as mentioned before, the chorus keeps sticking in the ears.

Maybe fans of the death-doom brigade Asphyx will be the ones who should give this album a chance. It is no classic, by far not, but it also avoids embarrassing elements or stupid amateurism. Its somewhat antiquated sound lacks aggression, even though the guitars have an appropriately deep basic tone. Anyway, those who have never heard a song of this album do not necessarily lead a sad life. That’s the main difference to those miserable creatures who never got in touch with “Left Hand Path”.

After their superb EP ‘The Eternal Fall’ Morgoth was branded one of the most promising new death metal bands from Germany. When ‘Cursed’ was released I could not help being somewhat disappointed but in the years to come the album did begin to grow on me.

Why was that? For two main reasons. First of all on ‘Cursed’ the average speed turned out to be less uptempo than their previous releases and I found the band, unlike contemporary artists such as Obituary, to be less aggressive and effective in the midtempo section. Fortunately the album wasn’t entirely slowpaced and dynamic songs like ‘Isolated’ and ‘Sold Baptism’ were pretty great but I stress again: the album could really have done with some more speed.
Secondly the production was far less heavy and dirty than their earlier releases. This emphasised the lack of heaviness in their midtempo material which obviously could not keep up without a heavier production.

Two main reason for me to like Morgoth (sound and speed) were absent at times therefore resulting in an originally rather disappointing album that yet eventually turned out to be their last classic death metal album that wasn’t so bad after all.

This is solid. Before Morgoth wandered into strange prog-death on Odium then to alterna-mallcore-techno on the wad of shit Feel Sorry for the Fanatic, they were a good death metal band. They used a bit of that weird Possessed riffing and the Beccarra "glass gargling" vocals, but these guys were quite a bizarre entity that made little sense to me.
And that's just why they're so good.
At times I feel I'm listening to Obituary, at others, early Death (Scream Bloody Gore or Leprosy). This is meant for crushing stuff, like bones and beer cans. Riffs can sometimes get technical, but never overyly technical. There's a melodic solo in "Unreal Imagination" and an acoustic intro to "Darkness," but that's as far as you're going to get. There's a really strong Black Sabbath/doom influence on here, especially the guitar tone and the middle section of "Sold Baptism." This has strong elements of both bands, but with a much darker sound and totally indecipherable vocals. Seriously, what is this guy singing about? If you watch the video for "Sold Baptism," which is equally bizarre and somewhat hilarious (not intentionally, I'm sure) you're going to be even more confused.
This is great music for driving around with your friends in a small redneck/mallcore kid city when you are drunk. For maximum effectiveness, pull up to that preppy blonde chick who's singing along to Eminem in her oversize SUV and get her to roll her window down. When she does, crank your Morgoth CD and go "blaaaaaauuuugh!!!!" along with the vocalist, and I can assure you, she'll run back home to mutha (or the shitty dance clubs), never to be seen again.
So yes, this is great. Fun, original death metal from Deutschland.