MORTUUS returns with their second full length album.
The band's previous work was exalted for a feeling of being "lightless" and "dreary as Hell" and characterized by the ubiquitous references to "atmosphere"- being a bleak, hopeless, mid-paced exaltation of Death. It might sound trite given the dearth of bands touting their authenticity and grimness within the realms of Death and Black metal, but a simple reading of the lyrical content here simply belies the fact that there is an egregore the penetrates deeper than that of skin and mortality.
This new material finds the band exploring the dark tunnels and empty shells that lurk beyond the shallow grave previously mined on the first full length, 'De contemplanda Morte: De Reverencie laboribus ac Adorationis'. And, as with the previous material, the sound is clear and organic and chillingly eerie.
'Grape of the Vine' offers a panorama of Death's landscape slightly more dimensional than that of the first album. Not so much so that people will question the fleshing out of the implements deployed, but enough that people will not accuse the band of repeating the past.
Review
...the maelstrom is a slowburning one. Not depressive in pace but instead methodical, the atmosphere here is one of complete suffocation, the winds that often carry in the darkest parts of night to mask the activities of those who wish not to be known. The songs individually are lengthy and their many surfaces slow to reveal the shadows within, but this means the experience becomes more rewarding with time. - Dead Rhetoric 4/5
