Morne to Release Engraved With Pain Nov. 3; “Wretched Empire” Video Posted
About a month ago, maybe two, I was fortunate to get an email from Metal Blade asking if I was interested in writing a bio for the new album from Boston atmospheric doomers, titled Engraved With Pain, and it was an easy yes. Heralded critically for their individualism and merging of different styles, I’d count them as undervalued considering their sound is malleable enough to fit on bills with a metal band like Gojira (a random name with precious little to do with Morne stylistically — any range of bleak proggers bubbled up from the heavy underground, sludge, death metal, industrial, on and on. And the record is four tracks long, utterly consuming, which is shown even in the small sample offered by the first single “Wretched Empire,” streaming below.
So I wrote the thing, duh. And it’s here though I’m posting it mostly to be archived here — it’s nice to keep things in a place — and if you want to skip it and go right to the song, no offense taken.
Here’s the art and info, including the bio I wrote (paragraphs two to four), and the single. Expect multi-tiered crush. Bask in it.
Off you go:
Morne: Boston Post-Metal Practitioners to Release “Engraved with Pain” Full-Length November 3rd via Metal Blade Records
“Wretched Empire” Video / Single Now Playing + Pre-orders Available
Boston-based post-metal practitioners and recent Metal Blade Records signees MORNE will unleash their devastating Engraved With Pain full-length on November 3rd, today unveiling the record’s first single, artwork, and pre-orders.
The stylistic pyroclasm of MORNE’s bleak, extreme but reachable metal did not happen overnight. Since their 2009 debut album, Untold Wait, the quartet has made simple categorizations like “doom” or even “metal” laughable, and their latest and fifth full-length, fittingly titled Engraved With Pain, refines their attack to a level toward which even 2018’s To The Night Unknown could only hint.
Engraved With Pain is a moment of grim triumph, as rooted in Celtic Frost as in Ministry, still somehow extrapolated from the gods Black Sabbath and characteristic of no one so much as themselves. Spacious, crushing, darkly thoughtful enough to be progressive but never so indulgent as to lose sight of its core message, the offering was recorded with legendary producer Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts.
Playing out across four chapters in forty-minutes, the album sees the veteran outfit crafting rhythmic tension and lung-squeezing atmospheres as Polish-born guitarist/vocalist Miłosz Gassan emits layered guttural shouts that speak to inner and outer crises. Engraved With Pain makes its title believable, and from its eponymous opener through “Memories Like Stone,” “Wretched Empire,” and “Fire And Dust,” it carries humanity individually and collectively through the realities of its decline.
“‘Wretched Empire’ is the first song off of our new album to be published bringing the wait to its end,” Gassan notes of the band’s first single, as well as their first ever video. “Barebone, stripped down riffs and a cold look at today’s reality, lyrically it’s my take on the current situation in the world: How divided everything is and how people are prone to being misled. How we forget our history; history that happened not that long ago. I never comment on my lyrics but maybe in this case it’s needed. I call humanity a ‘wretched empire.’ It’s not an optimistic song. I hope people will enjoy it and find something for themselves in this single and the whole album as well.”
Engraved With Pain will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats. Find pre-orders at: metalblade.com/morne
Photo by Hillarie Jason
MORNE:
Milosz Gassan – Guitar, Vocals
Paul Rajpal – Guitar
Morgan Coe – Bass
Billy Knockenhauer – Drums
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https://morneband.bandcamp.com
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