Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Mordenom
Release: 2009
Length: 55:50
Rating: 5/5
The Slovenian metal scene has been plagued from the very start by a shortage of actual releases on physical media. The vast majority of bands never got past demo recordings, a few made it to EPs, and even fewer have presented their musical vision on a proper studio album. Lately, though, that’s changing, and pretty much every homegrown heavy metal act has made putting out a full-length its goal. So we can finally say that the local scene is catching up with foreign markets in the quantity of releases, and in quality it’s easily catching up with, even overtaking, plenty of bigger metal markets. If it used to be that we mostly had a flood of black and thrash metal bands, better times are now dawning for genre diversity too, and one of the newer names proving it is the technical death/black metal outfit from Bela krajina, Mordenom. Before the album came out, the guys racked up a handful of shows that, by the accounts of those who were there, were more than excellent, and the recordings on their MySpace page promised a lot too… And then, like a bolt from the blue, the debut Agnvs Dei drops… and blows the mind of the author of the review you’re reading.
A short instrumental intro, Synopsis, plunges us into an hour-long orgy of fantastic black/death metal, setting up the unmistakable atmosphere that runs through Agnvs Dei. Mighty, pompous, mystical, epic: those are the adjectives we can easily pin on Mordenom. Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation already lays out the whole range of the album – devastating blast beats from the hands and feet of Jernej Bricelj, dynamic bass work from Dušan Vukčevič, lively and varied riffing from the duo of Rok Stopar and Marjan Krajačič, and last but not least, the excellent raw growl of Deni Petraš. But that only scratches the surface of everything this debut from the Bela krajina crew has to offer. Structurally and arrangement-wise, every single track is a masterpiece in miniature, and the band’s energy and uncompromising approach to the material is brilliant. The songs are like the merciless cruelty of nature – on one side, hurricane-force “blackened” riffing and blasphemous tremolo picking, backed by colorful drumming that’s mostly built on sacrilegious blast beats but also serves up a good dose of varied, well-thought-out transitions, plus dynamic bass lines, tear us apart in every direction like a relentless wind, and then the eye of the hurricane takes us in with otherworldly, almost ethereal solos, masterfully played by Krajačič. Occasional harmonic and melodic touches only add to the album’s incredibly dynamic character, and the guitar lines and rhythm section work as one with the vocals. Just as the instrumental side hits its peaks in phenomenal instrumental passages, the vocals, led by Deni Petraš’s confident growling – aggressive and brutal, yet understandable and clear – peak in unforgettable epic choruses that lodge themselves in your memory instantly. And individual lines work really well here too; they might come off as cliché on their own, but in the context of brilliant lyrics questioning the meaning of life, human existence, and the (non)sense of religion, they come across as mighty and spot-on – trust me, you won’t be forgetting lines like “crossing the Rubicon” or “I’m walking through the valley of the shadow of death” any time soon. And there’s something else that sets Agnvs Dei apart – the songs are damn colorful and full of tempo and rhythm changes, the interplay of complicated solos and riffs is unforgettable, and the structure, both within individual tracks and across the whole album, is incredibly varied and dynamic. Even though you could call Agnvs Dei technical metal in that respect, it doesn’t let up its hellish pace for a single minute, despite running almost an hour. Not to mention the breathtaking, hair-raising moments, like the shift from clean narration into the growled finish of the 11-minute masterpiece Towards the Iron Gates of Aeon, which you simply have to hear and experience. And when you add the exceptionally good bed of keyboards and “samples” that works like a symphonic soundtrack you could easily slot into some epic war movie, it’s plain as day that Agnvs Dei is a masterpiece.
A professional approach to music deserves a nicely designed booklet, and here too Mordenom can boast one of the best-looking booklets around, the work of the excellent Žiga Kroflič.
Although there was a huge “hype” built up around Mordenom early on, which the doubting Slovenes of course didn’t (and don’t) believe, the guys pulled off something with Agnvs Dei that probably nobody here has managed yet. The album is a supreme masterpiece that will be hard to top, but luckily the local metal scene has healthy competition, and I hope a good number of bands will try to match the excellence of Mordenom’s debut… and I myself am already impatiently waiting for the follow-up! “Si di volunt, si dis placet”… the gods wanted the Lamb of God…
Lineup
Jernej Bricelj – drums
Marjan Krajačič – guitar
Dušan Vukčevič – bass
Rok Stopar – guitar
Deni Petraš – vocals
Production
Mordenom
Tracklist
1. Synopsis
2. Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation
3. Purification of the Earth’s Peccadillo
4. Guardian of the Unfathomable Abyss
5. Above the Mysterious Worlds
6. Mediums
7. Conjecture About Reality
8. Blessing or the Curse
9. The Final Judgement
10. Towards the Iron Gates of Aeon
11. Requiem
