Published by Alessandro Violante on August 21, 2016
It’s always quite difficult linking in some way an album with a specific musical genre, as in the new Morbus M‘s album Fight or die, when several variations on the theme of dark electronics coexist, linked more by concept rather than by a music related fil rouge.
Listening to the sophomore album of this enigmatic artist, released six years after Forget the past, listeners will feel like they’re experiencing on their skin an Orwell-like dystopia in which obscurity and control reign. Fight or die can be interpreted as the message a martyr wrote on a wall with his blood, his last desperate act of resistance beforehe is killed, and this album is the perfect soundtrack for this scenario.
An album with a strong cinematographic imprint, sounding rather as a soundtrack, enriched by obscure melodic ideas giving added value to his efforts. There’s also enough space for more strictly rhythmic noise industrial ballets, as in the tribal Calling down and the title track, this last one very close to the masters of the genre in it’s music, Esplendor Geometrico.
The album sounds quite rough, as a will of the artist, and this adds an even more genuine intent, ideally establishing a link with industrial music pioneers sound. Morbus M is a man called to build again from scratch a post-industrial, desert and alienated world, brick by brick, and this dystopic poem accompanies the listener through the whole length of the album. We find instrumental songs rich of interesting ideas, the most of the times slow, as if they were taken from a soundtrack, and they contribute in making the listener crumble in this dimension. They often have terrific melodic ideas that are an added value in a non ordinary album.
What you see recalls Skinny Puppy with a very long sample that seems to reevoke their best ones and with an obscure melody that instill sadness. System of silence feeds the groove with a more engaging and less monolithic rhythm, Took a picture opens to electronica with slow rhythm and digitally modified vocals while Burning mind wraps us with a syncopated rhythmic crescendo, plus giving large space to trip hop-derived rhythmics, as in the obscure 5000. One of the best songs of the album is the remix of The_empath made for Deep line, a song hitting very hard with its horror-like melodies, heavy breakcore landscapes and an obscure veil covering its whole length.
Morbus M’s music is undoubtedly quite original and is one of the most interesting and particular Hands Productions acts. Fight or die is an album that throws us in obscurity, expressed in various forms, always maintaining a certain inner coherence, and this is what makes it a very interesting work. That’s why we hope we don’t have to wait six years before listening to its follow up.
Label: Hands Productions
Rating: 8, 5