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Tad Morose > Undead > Reviews
Tad Morose - Undead

Realm of dark fantasy - 77%

colin040, December 23rd, 2021

By no means am I huge fan of Tad Morose, but I can see why they’d appeal to fans of heavier power metal and for a quick comparison, think of the style that’s more along the lines of Angel Dust’s 90’s albums than that of Helloween’s Keeper of the Seven Keys series. In fact, Undead would probably appeal to the people who complain about power metal’s cheesiness (which, frankly, is silly criticism to me, most metal bands are cheesy in one way or another, but the good ones know how to pull this off). It features dark themes, a vocalist with a clear edge to his voice and despite their occasional keyboard-impacted moments, the guitars remain prominent.

Let’s get one thing straight right away though: to deny that the vocals play an important role here would be completely inaccurate. I wouldn’t be surprised if Urban Breed was in charge of the songwriting process, because Undead resolves more around impressive vocal hooks than an onslaught of riffs, but yes, what a voice does Urban Breed has! He does it all: like a possessed eagle he soars way up high with ease, occasionally adds some powerful grit to his voice, manages to convince you that singing power metal damn easy and perhaps most important of all: makes Undead sound extremely robust. I have no problem calling Urban Breed one of the best vocalists out there unfortunately that fall into the underappreciated category, but once you’ve heard what he’s capable of, you, too, will understand why I praise his him so much.

Fortunately, there’s more to the vocals and even though I used to believe that there wasn’t, it sometimes it feels good to be wrong! Stylistically speaking, Undead finds itself between the gloomy A Mended Rhyme and the simplistic Matters of the Dark and I’m not surprised why I prefer this album over the surrounding ones. Unlike its successor, Undead has some actual depth to it; with the exception of several catchy choruses (you can’t beat the ones of ‘’Where the Sun Never Shines’’ and ‘’Lord on High’’), these songs don’t just live and die by their choruses. They’re worth replaying many times over, whereas most of Matters of the Dark sounds much catchier, yet loses its appeal in the long run. There are some vocal-oriented tunes here, too, yet you could never say that these were written for a live setting where the crowd is meant to sing along. The foreboding ‘’Order of the Seven Poles’’ is chug-heavy, but unlike anything from A Mended Rhyme, it actually works all the way up towards that incredible soaring climax. The fantastical storytelling of ‘’The Dead and His Son’’ reminds me of something Dio would have written in his younger years, which is all about the overpowering vocals, but you wouldn’t hear me complain about that. Urban Breed sound at his most passionate here; belting and wailing with an enormous amount of power, while the track has an ancient and foreign feel to it. I’m convinced that an album full of these tracks wouldn’t work, but some variety never hurts anyone, does it?

Vocals aside, long-lasting guitarist Christer Andersson has clearly found his niche here. Equipped with a hefty guitar tone it would have been a waste if he wouldn’t use this to his advantage by actually playing some fine riffs. Fortunately, he’s definitely stepped up his game from A Mended Rhyme, which is too chug-based for my taste. I don’t mind some chugging in metal, but you’ve got to incorporate that properly, you know? Either way, most of what Undead has to offer sounds fairly solid and even unpredictable to a certain degree (which, frankly, you couldn’t say about Matters of the Dark), even if not every song represents a never-ending sea of riffs. ‘’Servant of the Bones’’ hint some Crimson Glory influence with its choppy riffing storming onward in that faithful American power metal fashion and along with the Iron Maiden-inspired ‘’No Wings to Burn’’, it’s the most referential track on the album. ‘’Corporate Masters’’ is another thrilling song and with its vibrant and thundering main riff, it turns into one of the heavier cuts on the album. It’s a good example of a guitarist pulling something like this off without relying on an unnecessary amount of riffs or by playing around with any overly sophisticated licks. But then again, sometimes less is more!

I’ll admit that I could have done with a few more riff-heavy songs in the vein of ‘’Servant of the Bones’’, but Undead sounds well-paced and its variety pays off as well. The only time things turn absolutely dreadful would be once the title track kicks off. It features some overpowering verses, where Urban Breed sound as gigantic as you’d expect him to be, but with that complaining chorus – combined with a plodding mid-paced riff, the track turns into something awfully mediocre. Of course, one poor track isn’t a big loss and while I could nitpick about the unimaginative chorus of ‘’Another Time Around’’ or the unnecessary start of ‘’Lord on High’’, those things don’t bother me too much. If anything, I can’t help but wonder: was Urban Breed lucky to have been part of Tad Morose or were Tad Morose lucky to have had Urban Breed as their vocalist? It’s up for debate, really. Yet, at the end of the day Undead remains a good album and that’s all that matters.

This review was originally written for antichristmagazine.com

Burn with the angels! - 100%

naverhtrad, April 13th, 2017
Written based on this version: 2000, CD, Century Media Records

Here is where the rubber meets the road, my friends. If you were to ask me for my short-list of contenders for best power metal album ever, Tad Morose’s Undead would be high on that list, right up there with Falconer’s Falconer, Gamma Ray’s No World Order and even Angel Dust’s Enlighten the Darkness. (If you read my review for that last album in my list, you’ll know that’s not idle praise.) It’s not at all with a sense of pretension that Undead opens with a creepy, jingling intro that swells ominously with a dim strings section as Urban Breed begins incanting in a near-whisper – and that becomes abundantly clear once that first squealing riff of ‘Servant of the Bones’ hits you. Because this is fuggin’-‘eavy metal.

It’s nigh-impossible to really strike that sweet spot where you have both moving, emotionally-poignant music, melody and harmony, and still capture that vicious, chthonic momentum of the best thrash metal bands. But – pardon the geekery – Tad take a damn Daedric warhammer to that sweet spot with ten dead-on overhead swings. Credit it, if you like, to Urban Breed’s Dio-esque vocal charisma, to the ease with which he transitions from his signature snarl to a wail full of pathos; or, if you prefer, to the dynamism of Christer Andersson, Daniel Olsson and Peter Morén. Any way you slice it, this band melds ballsy, blaring Accept-style riffing with earwormish, Fates Warning-reminiscent melodic passages with true aplomb. ‘Servant of the Bones’ is infectious enough, but you can’t help your blood pumping to the chorus line on ‘Where the Sun Never Shines’. And of course, there’s ‘Corporate Masters’, which is self-consciously indulgent in that regard, charging forward with a virulent, athletic arena-rock rhythm while Urban Breed belts out his rage against the rich and the mighty.

But Undead has not left behind either the dark, doomy predilections or the taste for white-collar melodic progressions which characterised Tad’s earlier work. As it’s become clear for awhile, they’ve now embraced that Ancient Near Eastern Powerslave motif with wide-open arms, and many of their songs (‘Another Time Around’, ‘Order of the Seven Poles’ – listen to that bridge, damn!, ‘Undead’, ‘The Dead and His Son’, even, somewhat strangely, the guitar solo of ‘Lord on High’) have this subtle impress. Instead of this album being just one blood-pounding full-tilt charge after another, Tad Morose take the time to build atmosphere in these compositions. Is this still ‘power metal’? Sure. And there’s less about Undead that can be easily labelled ‘progressive’ the way there was on the previous albums, there’s no doubt about that. But there’s a full, spacious depth to much of this album that indirectly showcases the debts they still owe to their progressive roots. They aren’t screwing around anymore with true dead space and ominous keyboard- and effects-driven interludes the way they were on Sender of Thoughts. But there’s still a sense of vastness to the compositions, a portension in some of the drawn-out chords, the tense reverb, the occasional gruff cultic gang shouts or tolling bells, not only on the doom-laden down-tempo bruisers but even on the speedier tracks like ‘No Wings to Burn’, that sets them apart from the common run of their contemporaries.

And that all matches the thought that went into the lyrics. I remember reading in an interview with Krunt or Urban, can’t remember where, that Undead was never meant to be a concept album, but that somehow it ended up that way. Indeed, you can hear the common thread that runs throughout, of people (or demons or angels or other spirits) who have been left behind by the ravages of time, forgotten by their gods, bloodily sacrificed to them, waylaid by forces beyond their control, and who now linger in a state between life and death – caught between a life without usefulness and a need which can’t let them leave it. I definitely like that idea; perhaps I have too high an opinion of the ‘accidental concept album’. Regardless of where the inspirations came from, or whether they took on that common thread on purpose or by an act of serendipity, the thematics do string together well.

It’s hard to know what else to say about this album without coming off like a total deluded fanatic – which, perhaps, I am. But here Tad Morose have put out a damn solid album crammed full of music to smash worlds to. For a power metal fan, Undead is essential listening; I don’t say that about a lot of things metal-related, but this is one of them.

20 / 20

A Heavy Metal maelstrom - fantastic stuff! - 98%

Empyreal, April 30th, 2008

Holy shit. Tad Morose are a very good band, and their latest album Modus Vivendi gets a lot of press, but if you ask me, this one is their best to date. It was their second album with the inimitable Urban Breed on vocals, and their fourth album as a band, and it is also a near-perfect example of how to write a good Heavy Metal album.

For the uninitiated, Tad Morose play Power Metal, except not in the variety that the genre's soft-headed detractors would usually expect and henceforth condemn as unworthy of Metal status. No, Tad Morose's music is highly reminiscent of bands like Jag Panzer, Metal Church or Morgana Lefay, or even Hall of the Mountain King-era Savatage at times; midtempo or upbeat, always headbangable, except this band utilizes the excellent riff and groove sensibility of both early and Dio-era Black Sabbath. In fact, the style of songwriting here reminds me a lot of Arch-era Fates Warning, too, being excessively moody and esoteric, mystical and wondrous, yet still compulsively headbangable and undeniably Metal. I love the atmosphere of this album, too, as listening to the strange, eerie Egyptian grooves and dark, brooding verses will take your mind straight away to a place you could only dream of before - like the cover art, it reminds me of a dark, dank temple, spacious and old, weathered by unkind ages and abandoned by its Gods. There's something strangely alluring about this atmosphere, and it will keep pulling you back for more. The production is thick and crunchy, and Urban Breed's charismatic sneer is in full force here, and he wails and blasphemes out some of the best lyrics the genre has seen in years. Fuck, seriously, just look at this excerpt from "Order of the Seven Poles":

I've seen it all
So believe me when I say
Even valiant princes fall
Oh! but rise now, rise again
Each day they seek me out, observe me in disguise
They do not know about the one, they think they saw him die
Only I, yes only I remember what is true I heard your name and then I knew
The seventh pole would summon you


It's the kind of greatness the Metal community expected from people like John Arch and Ronnie James Dio back in the day, and it is in no way a ripoff or derivative of anything. The music follows suit, being both knowledgeable of Metal's storied and noble history and completely original all the same. There is not even one bad song here, from the opening grind of "Servant of the Bones," the propulsive and high-octane "Another Time Around," with its choppy, stunted riffs flying at you like a swarm of killer hornets, the creepy, bizarre title track, with its slow build-up and creeping, crawling verse that explode into a bombshell of a chorus, the epic smash "Lord on High," and the eerie, slow stomp of "The Dead and His Son" that closes the album with style and class to spare. There's no way around it, this rules, and if you like Heavy Metal, then go get it. If not, then you best leave the hall immediately.

Originally written for http://www.metalcrypt.com

The greatest band in the world - 90%

ThySentinel, August 7th, 2004

The band that has made a lot of progress since their last album. I have heard some of their previous doom-prog stuff from "Mended Rhyme" (1997), which left me completely cold, but this is something quite different. Have they taken amphethamines or something? This rocks! Dark power metal, with plenty of melody and even more rage, riffs to kill, excellent vocalist (that reminds me of Crimson Glory's Midnight and Savatage's Zack Stevens) and musicians, lush arrangements, great songwriting, all this make this album a must have. Virtually every chorus will stick to your head. "Servant Of The Bones" and "Another Time Around" are both fabulous tunes with catchy and extremely powerful choruses. "Lord On High" has one of the most terrifying intros, as the man is about to be sacrificed on the altar. I would compare the overall mood to Evergrey, but it's less gothic and more energetic. Angry "Corporate Masters" (starts out with a wicked guitar shriek) is made for headbanging, it kicks ass all the way (great lead break too). I must also mention "No Wings To Burn": an outstanding piece. Another thing worth mentioning is that Urban Breed clearly puts some efforts into his lyrics, and that is always appreciated by this reviewer. Great stuff for people who look for something new in the sea of NWOEPM.