MORDICUS — Grown Under Shade of Sorrow (review)

MORDICUS — Grown Under Shade of Sorrow album cover Demo · 1991 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Grown Under Shade of Sorrow" is the second demo recording by Finnish death metal act Mordicus. The demo was independently released in June 1991. It´s the successor to the January 1991 "Abominations of the Earth" demo.

If you´re familiar with "Abominations of the Earth" it´s interesting to note that Mordicus in a few months went from being heavily influenced by Autopsy, Death, and early Paradise Lost, to aquiring a heavy dose of Carcass influence on "Grown Under Shade of Sorrow" (the two vocalists deep juicy growling/higher pitched raw snarling approach and all...). There is still the occasional melancholic death-doom metal section in the music, but it´s arguably the "Symphonies of Sickness" (1989) influence which is the most dominant influence on the musical direction on "Grown Under Shade of Sorrow". Contemporary Finnish death metal acts like Xysma, Disgrace, and Lubricant also looked in the directon of "Symphonies of Sickness" for influence, so it´s safe to say that Carcass had a huge impact on the Finnish death metal scene of the late 80s/early 90s.

Mordicus combine their Carcass influenced deathgrinding sections with heavy groove laden death metal parts and the aforementioned melancholic death-doom metal moments, so "Grown Under Shade of Sorrow" is quite the varied demo considering that it´s an early 90s death metal demo. If the songwriting was promsing and interesting on "Abominations of the Earth", "Grown Under Shade of Sorrow" more than fulfills that promise, although the Carcass influence is maybe a bit too obvious.

While "Abominations of the Earth" was more or less an advanced rehearsal room demo (recorded on a 4-track recorder), "Grown Under Shade of Sorrow" was recorded at a professional recording studio with a recording engineer (Jukka Timonen) and it´s a huge improvement in sound quality and listening enjoyment over the first demo. It´s still obviously a demo recording, but this time around you´re able to hear all instruments and vocals clearly in the mix and it´s overall a both powerful, raw, and brutal sounding demo. To my ears "Grown Under Shade of Sorrow" is a seminal Finnish death metal demo and a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.
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