Mortuary Drape indulge in particularly lavish and unforgiving brand of blackened death metal. With the band’s third album, the rapturously received ‘tolling 13 knell’, already lovingly reissued by the mighty Peaceville records, it is now the turn of ‘buried in time’, an album less well received upon its arrival in 2004 and now, some nine years on, ripe for reassessment. As with many of the Peaceville reissues of late it comes with added enticements this time round, in this case a slip case which offers an alternative cover and a pair of bonus tracks, but sadly no liner notes were added to this release which is a shame because of all the band’s albums this is possibly the one that would most benefit from the band’s own thoughts appended to the booklet. Nonetheless the album looks stunning, and with the benefit of hindsight and greater familiarity it’s notable that the album’s dark, dense production hides a number of great songs which, for whatever reason, went unremarked or unnoticed at the time of release.
The album opens on a creepy, atmospheric trip recalling the odd-ball horror of Dario Argento before exploding into the full-bodied riffs of ‘Unfading revenge’. The sound is dense, dark and filled with foreboding, the guitars closer to the searing attack of thrash metal although the bass-heavy sound gives the whole a claustrophobic feel that keeps things in a darker realm, but even here there is a subtle undercurrent of ambience that marks Mortuary Drape’s fourth album as being rather more of a grower than it was given credit for upon release. The band’s muscular display of power continues on ‘Deep void’, a blackened thrasher simply grinds its opponents into dust with its undiluted rhythms and simple, yet effective, riffing. ‘Ectoplasm’ emerges out of an eerie intro before settling into an unholy groove that is unexpectedly addictive. For sure it’s more traditionally heavy metal than anything on ‘Tolling 13 knell’, sitting not a million miles away from Sepultura in sound and delivery, but even here the band embellish the sound with their own distinctive elements – shifting rhythms and atmospheric flourishes abound and it is lazy to dismiss the track out of hand when it passes through so many different moods and elements over the course of its run time. A personal favourite, ‘mystery…guide us to death’ not only offers one of the band’s most potent riffs, a furious blackened thrash melee of demonic power, but also a mystical undercurrent courtesy of keyboards that embellish without detracting from the overall brutality.
Maintaining an intensity and level of aggression that comes as a surprise after the drier, more atmospheric sounds of ‘tolling…’, ‘look behind’ is a comparatively simplistic thrasher that probably accounts for many seeing the release as inferior to previous efforts. It is, in fairness, a decent song in its own right, but compared to, say, ‘mystery…’ it feels less accomplished, as if the band had taken a step back, and it lacks the subtlety and nuances found elsewhere in the band’s back catalogue. ‘Mirror portrait’, in contrast, segues straight out of ‘look behind’ and lies shrouded in an exotic miasma of eastern rhythms and atmospheric soundscapes. It is here that the true purpose behind ‘look behind’ is revealed – you need to hear the one to understand the other and as a pairing of tracks you realise that Mortuary Drape intended this album to work as a complete piece rather than a series of songs, distinct form one another. ‘Who calls me’, equally, for all its brutality, opens with a similarly tribal rhythm before exploding into a warlike blast of echoing grunts, thrashing guitars and pounding bass, but even here the band cannot resist developing a creepy atmosphere via the introduction of clean guitars and ever-increasing percussive blasts which thunder through the mix like the ominous rumble of an ever-nearing storm. ‘Spiritism… around us’ opens on a quiet note, a minor-key riff building over an atmospheric backdrop and whispered, half-heard vocals that is more Pink Floyd than Pantera (imagine Emperor covering ‘be careful with that axe Eugene’) before things descend into a swirling maelstrom of deathly riffs and double-kick insanity. It’s a fine tune, but you can’t help but wish the band had held onto the quieter passages for a moment longer, as it would have helped to build a far greater sense of tension. ‘Animism’ is unspeakably aggressive, and although it is a fine track as such, it is another example of the band not quite playing to their strengths, preferring instead to cut loose with metallic abandon. ‘Your last cradle’, interestingly, sounds like a cross between Cradle of filth and Paradise Lost with a lengthy doomy solo adding a stately feel to an otherwise vicious burst of blackened metal, although the extended coda to the piece sees the band once again exercising their atmospheric tendencies to the full. The final track, ‘crosses in the graveyard’ takes things back to blackened basics with a noxious blast of black metal riffs, doom-laden solos and unhinged, raw-throated vocals. It once again suggests why the album felt less satisfying than previous works – for Mortuary Drape ‘your last cradle’ would undoubtedly have worked as a far more satisfactory concluding track and yet the band seem to be so heavily into demolishing the listener with straight-up blackened thrash that, for them, it was more natural to unleash the forces of darkness for one last rampage.
The re-issue also adds two bonus tracks, entitled ‘beyond the veil’ and ‘the envoy’. The former track is much more to the heart of what makes Mortuary drape so special, a far rawer piece of music than seen on the rest of the album, the keyboards are more to the fore, the guitars more typically black metal in sound and the screams a darker, more harrowing prospect than the gruffer, more deathly approach of the record. The latter track is similarly stripped bare when compared to the album’s full-blown production values, and as with ‘beyond the veil’ the sound feels much more to the heart of what made Mortuary Drape such a revered prospect. The two bonus tracks, which predate the album by some four years, are interesting additions because the highlight much of what the band’s fans must have hoped the album was going to be and, whilst it is by no means a weak record, the tracks also serve to highlight how much the band’s sound changed within that period.
Overall ‘buried in time’ is a record that has gone undervalued over the years. It is, arguably, three songs too long and the emphasis is far more strongly on riffs than upon atmosphere. That said, there are moments that shine out brightly – the twist that sees the band shift from the furious blackened attack of ‘look behind’ to the tribal mysticism of ‘mirror portrait’, or the excellent ‘your last cradle’, for example but overall it is the weakest of the band’s albums. Re-mastered here it sounds hellishly strong. When the opening track comes storming out of the speakers it grabs the listener firmly by the jugular and there are similar moments to be found throughout the record, but there is no doubt that the overall power of the disc is hampered by the claustrophobic production and the simple fact that the record feels too long. Better than it was felt to be at the time of its release, this re-issue is certainly worth investing in if you don’t already own the album, but if you are new to Mortuary Drape then you must surely head for ‘tolling 13 knell’ first.
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