After much waiting and anticipation, the 15th studio release from Christian Death Metal’s premiere band Mortification has finally arrived! “Scribe of the Pentateuch” is the brand new fan funded EP that Steve Rowe and company have finally completed and just got into the hands of their many eager fans. I had been anxiously awaiting my ‘Untombed’ review copy courtesy of Mortification front woman (ha, ha) I mean promotional manager Sherri! When mine finally arrived I went straight inside and put it right on to my iPod, but then I stopped and thought ’NO’ this just won’t do for my first listen! So I finished putting it on my iPod but then decided this deserves more! So I never hit the play button in iTunes! I ejected the disc, removed the disc and put it straight in to the home stereo surround system and hit play!
Right from the opening track ‘Extradiefor’ melts your face off as it is a pure death/grind assault. Once this track finished I was expecting it to keep that same death/grind tempo and assault going throughout, but surprisingly the style changed ever so slightly and the next track, which is the title track, takes us a little more in the thrash direction and actually has some clean vocals from Steve mixed in there. Don’t get me wrong, the change was not bad at all, in fact the song rips as well and keeps you still chomping at the bit for more! The third track ‘Jaws of Life’ keeps up the fast paced tempo albeit probably my least favorite of the bunch, but still a great track none the less!
‘In Garland Hall’ is track 4 and the album has not let up yet and this track again contains some of those ‘clean vocals’ from Steve which personally I love to hear and think he did an amazing job on those vocals. ‘Weapons of Mass Salvation’ is track 5 and one of my personal favorites! This track really slows the album down quite a bit and takes us in to an almost doom / metal sludge vibe that this writer absolutely loves! I would LOVE to hear a whole Mort album done in this style. Steve is a very multi-faceted and very versatile vocalist and I don’t think he even realizes it. I would love to hear him leave his comfort zone some more and expand upon his horizons. If you have heard his WonRowe Vision side project you know exactly what I mean, and if not what are you waiting for! Up next maybe a worship album Steve? Just saying!
Track 6 ‘The White Death’ and also the last of the original tracks on this EP is another almost doom influenced infused death metal vocals track and another personal favorite! From here on out we enter the greatest hits of the 2000’s to round out this 10 track disc and make the ‘EP’ an official ‘LP’. These are probably the best tracks culminated from the bands more recent albums of the past 10 years. Tracks included are ‘Priests of the Underground’, ‘Too Much Pain’, ‘Erasing the Goblin’ and ‘Elastisized Outrage’. For those that have not heard the more recent albums this is a great sampling of just what you have been missing out on! My only problem with the whole project is I wanted more, but hopefully this is a sign of things to come from Mort and we can get a full length out of the band sooner rather than later!!!!
So in summary this is an amazing somewhat return to form for all those old school Mort fans, yet it still has enough of a modern flare to help keep Mort at the forefront of the true ‘Jesus Movement’ right where they belong as true defenders of the faith!!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Reviewed by: Bill Roxx
