Mortillery – Origin of extinction

Mortillery are a thrash metal band from Edmonton in Canada.  Their musical influences include Judas Priest, English Dogs, Warfare, Broken Bones, Iron Maiden, Crucifix, Slayer, W.A.S.P. Motorhead, Municipal Waste and early Metallica.  That “early Metallica” bit gives you a hint what the music is going to be like – as early Metallica was much faster than their newer material, and indeed Mortillery play fast heavy thrash.
Since forming in 2008 they’ve had a few lineup changes before settling on the current lineup in May 2010. Their debut EP was released in 2010 and their debut album, Murder Death Kill was released last year.  Now they’re back with their second album.

Brief comments on a couple of the tracks.

The album kicks off with “Battle March”.  It’s an instrumental track and a very good one with some great guitar work, but I really don’t think it was a good choice to start the album with – I’d much rather have had it start with one of the other songs so you get the full effect, as missing the vocals means the track lacks a lot of punch.  It would have been better later in the album as a change of pace.

Second track “No way out” takes a long time to get going – the first minute and a half is basically an intro and its only after this point that the vocals kick in.  Cara’s vocals have so much power and aggression that they really step the songs up to another level, so the long intro reduces the impact of the song.

After that though, the rest of the album is more full-on without long intros, and with Cara’s screaming vocals and the powerful music working perfectly together

It’s a great album – heavy and loud with some great guitar, pounding drums and awesome vocals.  Fans who enjoyed “Murder death kill” are going to love this one – it’s even better than the first album.

Rating: 8.5/10

Track listing:

1. Battle march
2. No way out
3. Cease to exist
4. Creature possessor
5. Seen in death
6. Feed the fire
7. The hunter’s lair
8. F.O.A.D
9. Maniac
10. Sunday morning slasher

Mortillery are:

Cara McCutchen – Lead Vocals,
Alex Scott – Lead Guitar,
Alex Gutierrez – Rhythm Guitar,
Kevin Gaudet – Drums,
Miranda Gladeau – Bass