Eroded Thoughts

Morgue don't get much attention these days. Their only album ("Eroded Thoughts") was released a year too late to have an impact on the American death metal scene. It is no classic, but is a decent stab at death metal from a band with a unique sound. This band hailed from Chicago, and tapped into that dirty, 'mid-western' death metal vein. My impression is that the death metal from these inland areas of America was less sleek and polished than the Florida bands, and less explicitly brutal than those from New York. These mid-Western bands often exude a less competitive vibe, sounding more relaxed and idiosyncratic. There is an ‘anything goes’ mentality that Morgue captured here.

The album begins with "Coroner's Report", an impressive opener. It mixes the swampy, bluesy sounds of Autopsy ("Mental Funeral") with the thrusting, push/pull riffs of Napalm Death’s death metal era (e.g., "Harmony Corruption"). The vocals have a similar gravelly quality to Barney Greenway too. Most of the album swings between these two poles. Some of the songs are closer to an Autopsy-style trudge ("Random Decay" being the prime example). Others are faster, more technical and contain blasting (such as "Severe Psychopathology"), occasionally moving into full-on “Altars of Madness” worship. The common element that binds all these songs together is the astounding lead playing. The solos on this album are brilliant, melodic, and explode from unexpected places. They are also more rooted in the blues than you might expect for a death metal band.

Elsewhere, there is a vague Scandinavian death metal feel to some of the riffs (Unleashed in particular). Other riffs are borrowed from Slayer, such as the opening riff of "Plagued Birth". This song builds to become the strangest and most experimental on the album. There is a section based on pinch harmonics, there is an incredible middle-Eastern sounding solo in the middle, and then some strange guitar echo effects. It sounds great. The second Gorguts album might be another good reference point. Most of the latter half of the album continues in this vein, being angular and intense. Most of it works, some of it degenerates into riff-salad. The title-track that closes the album is the worst offender. It makes little musical sense and sounds like a step too far, being my least favourite track on the album.

The production is OK. The riffs lack the heaviness we’ve become accustomed to with death metal, but this allows the lead guitarist to shine. Everything has a dry, brittle sound, similar to “Mental Funeral” (though Funebre's "Children of the Scorn" is probably the best comparison). The end result is an interesting death metal anomaly. Morgue could never be accused of sounding like an average American death metal band. There are musical diversions and elements here that you won't find anywhere else. However, this 'jack of all trades' approach to death metal can lessen the overall impact. The album is outflanked by the multitude of more focused death metal albums (like "Altars of Madness", or "Mental Funeral", or even "Children of the Scorn"). Morgue may not have created top-tier death metal, but they made an interesting record that is worth a few listens.

Formed in the Chicago area in 1990, Morgue's first and only album was released on underground label Grind Core International. Although they were from the mid-west, their sound fused European flair together with the unhinged American brutality common among their label mates. 1993 was near the end of death metal's golden era, so it's easy for this one to fall through the cracks. Upon revisiting this record after many years, I've really found myself sinking my teeth into it more than I had in the past. A lethal combination of riffs and overall maniacal performance makes Morgue's sole record worth hearing for any death metal fan.

Morgue waste no time, diving into a Pestilence style death/thrash riff to start the album off, and then immediately jump into some tremolos and blast beats. They also show some thoughtful fretwork between the two guitarists, layering in octaves on some riff tails. The song breaks down to an Autopsy-esque death/doom part with a tasteful solo. The variety of riffing and feels flow into each other with ease, and that sets the table quite well for the rest of the record.

There's definitely some typical mid-western mid-paced death metal parts that can be compared to fellow Chicagoans Cianide, alongside some of the slower riffs. "Random Decay" puts this on full display as it chugs and crawls, demolishing all with its heaviness. Again, they pull out some more Autopsy influence with the melodic approach during these slow sections. Despite all the doom, the drums keep the energy frantic as it goes on, throwing in a lot of quick drum fills.

For its time and place, "Eroded Thoughts" has great production. It's not gassy sounding as a lot of mid-western death metal tends to be, and is honestly one of the better sounding records on the Grind Core roster that I've heard. Being the early 90's, there's definitely a lot of compression on the drums, but it sounds like what you'd want in a death metal record. The kicks are really up front, the snare snaps nice, and the toms crush. The guitar tones are decent enough, and the bass isn't really up front but can be found filling in that bottom end pretty well. The lead tones are great, and really showcase those guitar chops.

There's some fine lead playing here, which again can lend itself to that European flair. "Plagued Birth" really pushes this on both the solos and its frantic riffing. There's some cool phaser effects that pop up on that song too that could very well be on a Death record. After delivering a cut throat ripper, they serve up the album's longest track, "Severe Psychopathology," which builds from a death/doom crawl up to an apex of death/thrash speeds.

"Eroded Thoughts" is just over half an hour long, and it manages to cover a lot of ground in its 7 tracks. There's some straight ahead brutality, but there's also some more complex songs that show off the band's musical prowess. By no means does this cover any ground that hasn't been covered in death metal by 1993, but it is well executed and has plenty of varied riffs to sink your teeth into. Perhaps this band could've had more recognition had they put out some more records, but at least their only album is a certified crusher. The diversity of riff styles and tempo changes spearheaded by a savage death metal approach makes this one worth seeking out.

Like 10 years ago I was at the metal shop of my city, always searching for something interesting among the second hand CDs. When I saw the cover of this album (which is weird but good in my opinion) I knew it was going to be a good purchase. But I'm still not sure if it was or not.

It is American death metal, for sure inspired by Autopsy and Malevolent Creation just to name 2 heavyweights. The album is not bad. But also not great. I think I didn't listen to this album for more than a couple of days before putting it away.Some time ago, while putting some things in order this CD reappeared. I didn't remember this disc was part of my collection! So I decided to play it again after so long, and it continues being boring like it used to be.

The main problem of this band is the poor songwriting. The album sounds as if the band members had put together any death metal idea they had in mind. So the result is a messy death metal collage. Songs have the same simple and repetitive structure and some of the variations really make no sense. All this makes the album very tedious and confusing. A lot of breaks and slow parts destroy the flow of the songs. Of course, there are some quality ideas and moments. A good number of heavy and melodic riffs are very well done. But as soon as you start enjoying it, boredom comes back. The band members are very capable musicians, I have no doubt about it. Even the kind of death metal they are trying to play is not so average. They add some good progressive or technical elements, along with some nice solos. But all in all, songs are neither impressive nor evil. Obviously not catchy either. Vocalist makes a good job, but sounds like thousands of other singers of the genre. The production is OK, but due to the low volume, everything sounds very weak. Apart from this, all instruments are distinguishable.

There isn't so much more to say. I don't want to be so severe with this record, because it's not bad at all. But it's not comparable to none of the genre's classics. I would recommend it only to fans of old school death metal. I think this is a good album to listen from decade to decade. Enjoyable for a couple of minutes but no more. But every album deserves a chance, and this is a decent one!

Morgue's "Eroded Thoughts" is an ancient piece of Illinois death metal. While obviously not the most well-renowned band in the old school death metal scene, and certainly not an album that is revered as a classic by very many people, "Eroded Thoughts" serves as an interesting listen on more ways than the average listener would probably think. Morgue's style could be described as a fusion of the raw, rotten, and disgusting sound of early Death and "Severed Survival"-era Autopsy with the more technical and pretentious elements that Germany's Atrocity brought into the scene with their first two albums. While listening to this CD, there is no doubt that the band knew what death metal was all about, and had the ability to play and write this music, but there's also a sense of technicality and progression that both helps and hurts the overall end-product.

This album does a great job conveying the classic death metal atmosphere, conjuring up images of graveyards, tombstones, morgues, etc. with melodic leads & riffs that can only be described as "sick", or "depraved" (check the opening riff to "Severe Psychopathology" for one of the most disgusting melodies I've ever heard - fucking perfect it is!!). The problem is that the songwriting often feels a bit disjointed. While the album takes twists and turns in just about every direction imaginable, it is also filled with some very strange songwriting ideas that would make Alf Svensson blush. This makes for an interesting and unique listen, and in certain songs it leaves the listener with a very solid taste in his/her mouth (opening track, "Coroner's Report" is just an all-around great tune, and has a very "complete", almost anthemic quality to it), but in others, it feels disjointed and quite frankly, fucking annoying. Take "Random Decay" for example. The song's verse starts out as a slow, almost Obituary-like behemoth. This sounds pretty cool until the band gets to the end of the first measure and randomly pauses, before coming back. This might be cool once...but not when you find out that it's actually part of the riff. That's right...Morgue thought it would be a great idea for the verse riff to just *stop* at the end every time it's played...it sounds very awkward. A lot of the others awkward moments will feature a pretty standard death metal riff, which will randomly hold on a few notes, slowing down at a totally random time in the middle of the riff, and giving off a very strange vibe (which, admittedly, might fit well with the lyrics!). However, the good far outweighs the bad. The band's riff and lead-writing capabilities are really something to be admired, as there is truly some amazing stuff to be heard on this album, enough so that anyone willing to forgive the occasional awkward break will find himself in a headbanging frenzy.

The vocalist of Morgue is a pretty generic death vocalist. That's no offense to the guy, he's a perfectly capable vocalist, but contains no distinctive quality that makes him stand out...aside from his lyrics. While not exceptionally well-written, Morgue took a very unique approach to the lyrics on this album, which are centered mostly on abnormal psychology and the study of the mind. Just check "Personality Conflict", a song which is about a personality conflict (can you believe it???). Even when the band sings (erm...grunts?) about murder ("Repulsive Death"), or the all-encompassing fear of dying ("Coroner's Report"), there's a strong emphasis on the psychological side, over the stereotypical gore style, which I find very interesting, especially as someone who is currently majoring in Psychology.

Overall, Morgue's "Eroded Thoughts" is a good album. It's a very interesting listen, filled with killer riffs, interesting lyrics, and an overpowering sense of death. It's far from perfect, but it's worthy of being in the collection of most old school death metal aficionados, like yours truly! Truly, it's a shame the band never created more material, as it would have been more interesting to hear where the band went from here to further nurture and grow as musicians and songwriters, but we will literally never, ever know.

This album was a download for me as it is very rare. I randomly heard a song or two on YouTube and figured it'd be worth the time to download it. I did, and then when I had the time to listen to the whole thing, I did. And what I can say is it is middling. Very average. Run of the mill. Plain. Mediocre. Middle of the road. But, a lot of bands don't even get that far with an early release, and it is disappointing that they split up so fast. I feel that the problems this album has could have been resolved with a little more experience.

I'll start with the production. It is pretty good for a first release, but still is bad enough to take away from the listener. The instruments are all pretty quiet and distant sounding, but not in the cool, evil sounding way. The guitars aren't 'crunchy' enough. They lack that death metal kick. The bass is virtually inaudible throughout the album. This is made worse by the overall lack of volume that is produced. The volume is on par with Blood Fire Death by Bathory. I own a couple of quiet albums (that included), but this one is one of those that takes a lot away from the music. The only thing that is really very loud is the vocals.

Which sucks. Because they are so uninspired. They sound like any beginner death metal vocals. Cookie monsterish with a nice blend of incoherence. This wouldn't be such a problem if they weren't drowning out the instruments. I can deal with them being really plain and monotonous, but I kind of want to hear the music more. Considering this is the first album I'd bet that his vocals would improve as would the production, but for this release they both fall short.

The riffing is average on this release as well. Hit or miss would be a good description. There some good rocking in Repulsive Death and Coroners Report. Besides that the real good parts are few and far between. Most of the riffs are at least good but they are played to death. On a lot of the songs, the structure is riff 1, riff 1, riff 1, riff 1, riff 1, fill or solo, riff 1, riff 1.... Probably a bit exaggerated but it got tiresome on most songs after a while. Random Decay is the one that was the worst with this problem. There are enough good moments to keep this from being a flop but it was annoying listening to the whole thing.

The lyrics are decent death metal lyrics that are morbid enough to satisfy that typical flavor of brutality but not so pointlessly graphic as to come off gimmicky. That is really all there is on that topic. They aren't anything too special but not bad either.

Overall this album was a decent start for a band that probably could've become really good if not great. With more experience of songwriting, more time to focus on production, and more time to develop vocal talents, the following releases may have been much better. But for this middling album, I'm going to give a middling score of 50 out of 100 or a 2 out of 5.

Highlights:
Coroners Report
Repulsive Death

I wonder how many of you do know this American band? I guess not as many as I would hope, but if you ever have a chance please get this album... I know there were many bands called MORGUE, but this one is absolutely fantastic and to my honest opinion it's one of the best and along with GUTTED and KILLING ADDICTION the most underestimated US death metal bands in the history of this music.

What makes me think like that about MORGUE then? Well, "Eroded Thoghts" simply fits brilliantly to my musical taste. I’ve loved this album straight away, from my first listening of it. The band delivers here totally classic death metal effort in the old school vein, taking the influences from the American scene mostly and such acts as POSSESSED, AUTOPSY, but also gazing into some European hordes, ASPHYX especially, but also GOREFEST from their debut album and THANATOS. Isn't that enough to make my blood boil? It is damn close, I can tell you!

And so “Eroded Thoughts” starts with “Coroner’s Report”, really aggressive and fast opener, which is followed by much slower and heavy as fuck “Random Decay”, which easily could be yet another ASPHYX anthem. I can truly consider this Dutch band to be MORGUE’s biggest influence along with AUTOPSY really. Then “Repulsive Death” is faster again, while “Plagued Birth” comes with some melodic riffs and even slightly more complex structures; some of its fragments are quite surprising really and differ a lot from the straight forward approach of the previous tracks. I managed to find out that this song, together with the title track - are the only new songs on that album – the rest are old tracks from the demos. It seems then that MORGUE started to evolve a bit at that time into more complex, technical playing. Great, but I prefer the older, more brutal songs like “Severe Psychopathology” and “Personality Conflict” – but these two also have some surprises, the first one especially as it has a long guitar solo part.

If I say MORGUE presents fresh and original look on the genre I would lie, because they don’t. Their death metal is very traditional and hardly innovative. Bu to me it’s enough if it's really well played, the sound is just great, all songs are catchy and powerful and the feeling is there! And most importantly MORGUE has the riffs! Yes, they have great, classic death metal riffs in the vein of the best bands in this old school genre. The album was recorded almost 20 years ago, costs a fortune, but I'm 100% happy having it and listening to it frequently. I just can't get tired of "Eroded Thoughts" and that says a lot it's a forgotten jewel. Definitely it’s an album worth to check out and highly underestimated.

Morgue's one and only full-length is the perfect old school death metal album. No it's not the best out there, and it's not even the most original album you'll ever hear. I can say that it's one of those albums that will never go out of favor with a true death metal fan. For it's inventive style, excellent production sound and performances.

Culling influences from the early 90's american death metal scene, Morgue had it in their minds to create something evil, heavy and disturbing. Any weathered fan knows the drill when it comes to the American old school death metal sound. Production is crisp and clear, the guitar tone is blunt and looming much like Autopsy's on "Severed Survival." The bands approach musically seems to wander off in the Autopsy, Winter, Cianide vein about a quarter of the time. Cianide is an obvious sonic comparison here because the first half of the album features a member of Cianide on the drums. But please take note that this album isn't nearly as slow and is definitely not as boring as Cianide's early output. The fact that this album had two drummers lends to the variation in style, though it is not drastic at all. Otherwise this is best compared to Gorefest's masterpiece "Mindloss" or even Unleashed's "Shadows in the Deep", great variation with thrash inspired riffs that could fit in on a Dream Death or early Celtic Frost album.

This is the kind of variation every death metal album needs and is what early 90's death metal is all about. The finality of the genre's influences culminating in it's perfected form. Morgue's album is an excellent example of what old school death metal was and still is in hindsight. Brutal in the true heavy metal sense, before the rise of uselessly brutal/technical death metal.

Recommended for fans of Autopsy, Winter, Gorefest and Unleashed.