Mordant
Black evil master
Night Tripper Records
The most succinct way of describing Sweden's Mordant is to say that it's like a 3-way blend of Watain, Nifelheim and Carpathian Forest with a hint of the rhythm guitar sound from "Slowly we rot" and miles of melody in the mix. If that sounds like it might float your boat, then I would suggest you buy this right away. If, like me, you find the aforementioned bands quite patchy in their output then I would be wary of parting with your hard-earned for this. There are some really killer moments on "Black evil master", with all of "Council of evil" as a prime example, but the flipside of that is that a lot of the material sounds the same, despite the wealth of riffage on offer. There are also some subpar moments on the album, such as "Retaliation of the dark" which -- if you were to replace Bitchfire's (yes, I know!) vocals with John Tardy's -- would sound like a bonus track on Obituary's "Back from the dead" stinker. Despite its initial promise and many cool moments "Black evil master" is a pretty average album that doesn't have a hope in hell of standing the test of time.
- John Norby
