Writing this review is probably a pointless exercise – Chances are if you hate the idea of a Black Metal album from then nothing I will write will change your mind….

Firstly Mortem were an early, influential band in the Black Metal scene but only recorded a few demos before all the members left for more well-known groups (Mayhem, Thorns, Arcturus). Now thirty years on they have reformed to properly record those demos as a new album, Slow Death.

Alongside the original five demo songs there is one other song from the same period and a cover of the Mayhem track Funeral Fog (sung in Norwegian).

With song titles such as Mutilated Corpse and Agonized to Suicide you can fairly well guess what it will sound like – a brutal hybrid of Death and Black Metal.

The album comes with original demo recording so you can compare and contrast. What the new recordings gain in better production and 30 years’ worth of learning to play their instruments, they lose in youthful energy.

This is a really good album IF you like your metal extreme and can live with the shrieking vocals but if that doesn’t sound like something you would enjoy then probably best to give this album a miss…

 Let’s restart the music reviews with a much anticipated release – The 20th (!) studio album from Marillion, An Hour Before It’s Dark.

This was never going to be a bad album but the big question was: Will it be as good as FEAR?

And the answer is very nearly.

The album is being described as the one where the guitars are bought back, but for me the star of this album is Mark Kelly. From the opening piano run in Be Hard on Yourself, his keyboard work takes centre stage and is quite brilliant.

The opening track of Be Hard on Yourself is state of the planet address but without the usual stilted sentiments. Lyrically superb it ranges from righteous anger (‘monkey need a new toy’) to breathless urgency  (‘we haven’t got long’) and the music drives along at quite a pace.

Reprogram the Gene is more of a stream of conscious lyric with an almost brutal change of pace between parts I and II before settling into an almost pop feel (reminiscent of the Holidays in Eden period)

Murder Machines is probably one of the best four minute tracks Marillion have ever recorded. A song about the pandemic with a bittersweet chorus to sing aloud and some soaring guitar from Steve Rothery.

The absolute jewel on the album though is the closing four part Care - a celebration of the NHS and those that helped us through lockdowns and Covid. From the almost funky opening to the choral crescendo where we learn ‘the angels of the world are not in the walls of churches’, it’s interspersed with lyrics and musical motifs from earlier tracks.  Fifteen minutes of perfection.

So why not quite as good as FEAR? Firstly the Crow and the Nightingale track, it’s not bad but there’s nothing in it for me to elevate it to the standard of the rest of the album. Secondly, I just don’t like the artwork – It looks like a child’s painting you would stick on a fridge 

To be producing music this good (number 2 in the album charts) when you are 20 albums into a career is nothing short of astonishing

 Thought it was a good time to restart the blog - there are already a load of great new albums to review (Marillion, Shovels & Rope, Mortem) and plenty more on their way (Bryde, Rosetta Stone, Nerina Pallot)

Rules are the same as before, no compilations, no re-issues and no live albums...  Just brand new studio albums that I buy this year.

Hopefully the first review will be up this week!