Mors Sonat - Comforts In Atrocity - CD (2013)

Labels: Crucial Blast
Review by: Alex Deller

What happens when you pair that guy Mories (Gnaw Their Tongues, Cloak Of Altering, Aderlating, about a million other incarnations…) with an Aussie guy called Bob, who also happens to be the bloke behind Nekrasov? This, that’s what, and it sure as heck ain’t pretty. ‘Comforts In Atrocity’ represents a disconcerting fever dream wherein you’re stalked through winding tunnels by members of a satanic blood cult. Opening track ‘Holy Holy Holy Nil’ starts with a sound like two dry bones being scraped together before encircling you in a wreath of mournful strings. Gradually, the edges are smudged, the thrum begins to build and the howling void consumes all. Elsewhere, things fizz and crackle with negative energy, spectres emerge from the fog and unformed voices grow into dense thickets of impenetrable noise. Black metal aesthetics are wound like wire around ambient ghostscapes while shrill electronic noise browbeats you with the incessant whine of a dentist’s drill. It is harsh, bleak and thoroughly unsettling, but at the same time hewn with such skill, dedication and craftsmanship that it approaches some worrying form of horrific beauty.