Morne: To the Night Unknown

It’s been five years since Morne’s last release, but the music on this album is worth waiting for. This album comes to us from Armageddon Label and the band’s own Morne Records and was recorded and mixed at New Alliance Audio Productions by Jon Taft and mastered at Audiosiege by Brad Boatright. For the band, this album represented an opportunity to sit back, breathe, and play what they want. As Milosz Gassan (vocals / guitars) explains, “It’s been five years since our last release and we are extremely proud of what we have accomplished with this new album. I feel that there was a lot of room to breathe on this one and we didn’t feel imprisoned by anyone’s expectations.� I know that such statements can be disingenuous, especially if a long-awaited album isn’t very good. In this case, however, the album definitely exceeds expectations.

Morne is best known for the way they reach beyond their initial blend of doom and crust into areas that give the band their individual sound. Most of the tracks on this album have driving riffs that provide enough structure to keep things interesting but that never force any particular outcome. This is a band that thrives on letting things develop slowly and patiently, as if the band wants to know what will happen while they play. The band is known for bringing at atmospheric quality to their music. This comes, not from ambient noise and background effects, but by letting things develop slowly enough that the music simply sinks into the mind. In that sense, it occasionally sounds like a mild take on drone rather than crust and doom. Put another way, Morne captures the attention while also letting the mind wander. I’ve always stuck by bands like this precisely because of the music’s slow but powerful development.

My favorite track was “Scorn,� but I also recommend “Night Awaits the Dawn, “The Blood is Our Own,� and “To the Night Unknown.� This is a strong new release and is definitely worth checking out.

Track Listing:
1. To the Night Unknown
2. Not Our Flame
3. The Blood Is Our Own
4. Scorn
5. Show Your Wounds
6. Night Awaits the Dawn
7. Shadowed Road
8. Surrendering Fear

Added: August 4th 2018
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 1530
Language: english

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