Albums

Album Review: Mourning Caress

Album: Inner Exile
Label: Restrain Records

Following a long gap from 2002’s debut ‘Imbalance’ album, Mourning Caress have got their shit together, changed labels and finally released ‘Inner Exile’. Recorded in two weeks last autumn at producer Jorg Uken’s Sandlodge Studio in Northern Germany, Gerrit Mohr’s shouty Gallows-esque punk vocal instantly mark out the direction of the music but, unfortunately, it’s subsequently confused by shifting guitar styles and some fairly weak songs.

Best of a bad bunch are ‘As Long As We Are One’ which is far darker, more direct and menacing and it slowly ekes out a pattern of rise and fall that complements the vocal much better. With interlacing guitar patterns, double-kick drills and snare rolls, a nicely chugging bass and chiming chord harmonies it evokes Iron Maiden at their moodiest and most aggressive. Also keep an ear out for the final sustained guitar ring of ‘Enter Today’ which gives way to the rapid punk drums and vocals of ‘Sorrows’. Punchy, hard and hefty it’s supplemented by feisty guitar grinding and a spot of blistering shredding.

I’m afraid the less said about the rest the better –it’s simply all over the place. Perhaps it’s easier to understand why the tracks are so varied if we understand the Mourning Caress history. Their guitarist left in 2005 and his replacement brought a heavier sound which they incorporated. This combined with the fact that the songs on the album were written over a four year period, and by different band members, and we can start to see why this album is so lacking in distinction or direction. Their website has them down as thrash but ‘Inner Exile’ is a combination of slutty hair rock, headfuck punk and brooding doom metal and that’s not a pretty combination.

For fans of: Gallows, Entombed, Iron Maiden
Band links = Mourning Caress

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Tags: album, cd, mourning caress, inner exile, review, iron maiden, entombed, gallows, rock

John’s review also appears in Subba-Cultcha.

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