Customer Reviews

House By the Cemetery / Mortal Massacre

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This album is really great! I wasn't a Mortician fan that long and when I first listened to them I did think...They suck because they have no skills. But one day I sat down and listened to them really closely...I gave them a second chance and they are totally brutal! They are one of my favorite bands now. I hate how people always talk crap about them just because they are not too skilled or technical...but tell you the truth...neither is rap. And somehow rap is the most listened type of music in America. Atleast Mortician plays guitar and sings with honesty. Rap is just all programable and anyone can go on stage talk really fast. Back to Mortician...they are a great band...just give them a try and they will grow on you. That is what they are...a disease of death. They have gotten a new drummer and I think they are really gonna shock and stun new and old fans. I can't wait until there next release. HAIL MORTICIAN!!!

When I was in my late teens in the early '90s and just getting into death metal, I was obsessed with hearing the most extreme, brutal, and underground stuff available at the time. Luckily I found what I was looking for and much more in Yonkers, New York's Mortician. I am happy to report that these early releases sound just as good all these years later as they did then and I still don't think any band has ever topped them in sheer aural brutality. Mortician is way underrated and underappreciated in the underground and sometimes even unfairly maligned, mainly by a distinct few holier-than-thou folks only into "technical" and "avant garde" death metal that I largely say no thanks to.

Compiled here are all the early releases, starting with the first demo, recorded in February 1990, and later released as the "Brutally Mutilated" 7" on Seraphic Decay Records. While I feel the best was yet to come from Mortician, the band clearly were one of the earliest to play in this downtuned gory, death/grind style. Probably even before fellow New Yorkers Cannibal Corpse.

If there was any sloppiness and room for growth on the first demo, that was definitely taken care of in August 1991, when the band entered D-D Studios to record their second 7" and first for Relapse Records, "Mortal Massacre." This I feel is their true masterpiece. All the songs are based on classic horror films, the title track sampling the original "Night of the Living Dead." Will Rahmer's vocals are lower than before and as guttural as can be, perfect for this style. One thing that I feel really makes this their best release was the addition of Matt Sicher on drums. The ultra-raw and truly brilliant production makes his blasts on tracks like "Drilling for Brains" thoroughly mindblowing.

Sadly, Sicher was killed the following year in a boating accident and the band would not be heard from again until January 1993, when they recorded three tracks (included here) for Relapse's "Corporate Death" compilation. Since the band had failed to find any human drummers up to Sicher's level, for the first time they utilized a drum machine on these tracks.

The band really capitalized on this on their next 7" "House by the Cemetery," recorded in the course of one day in a mere three hours in September of 1994. Not only are the horror movie samples better and more fitting than ever before on these tracks, but the drum machine reaches literally inhuman speeds that a normal drummer could not, topping even England's Sore Throat in the velocity department. This 7" was another classic and one of their best ever.

All in all, this CD collects all the best material from a band that deserves credit as being perhaps the most brutal and extreme ever. Mortician are what death metal is all about. Highly recommended.

Just listen to the song "drilling for brains", there's that breakdown part that simply kicks a$$. It goes-THUMP thump THUMP thump THUMP thump THUMP thump. Death Metal briliance.

House By The Cemetery/Mortal Massacre is Mortician's first two albums with Relapse. Mortician's sound is deep distortion and vocals and the use of a drum machine for percussion. Mortician is an excellent band for those that like horror movies since these guys add sound clips from horror movies as intros and/or outros on most of their tracks. Although, you may get bored of them after a while since most of their stuff sounds the same. So, just listen to them occasionally.