Review by Paul Castles
Self Release available for free on Morgue Orgy’s website here
Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Well they say it’s the thought that counts. In that case there were few better gifts to be found in your stocking on Christmas Day than a free download of the new album from Birmingham’s very own destroyers Morgue Orgy. The Last Man on Earth is now out officially and it’s a work of such astonishing violence, vision and virtuosity that it demands your attention sooner rather than later. It’s a self-release and follows on from two EPs that the band have put out since forming around five years ago, one of which featured guest vocals from Dave Hunt of fellow Brummie behemoths Anaal Nathrakh.
Morgue Orgy serve up a fiendish feast of furious melodic death metal all wrapped up in an incendiary package bursting with energy, infused with a synth and sprinkled with a little horror-coated humour. Unusually for what still remains very much a metal album it is the spiralling synth that we hear first on ‘They Came From Outer Space’. This intergalactic opener is a stop start affair but within its breaks and pauses there’s enough atmosphere to send an astronaut into orbit and back again. Once the cosmic crashing settles down some seriously demonic pounding smashes emerge with runaway riffs, devastating drums from Tom Collins and some caustic angry vocals from Gray. Second track ‘4 Days’ has enough heat to ignite a forest fire with a mind-spinning thrash assault that threatens to flatten anything that gets in its way. There are plenty of guitar solos thrown in and when they arrive the trickery is enough to bamboozle a Russian chess master.
While Morgue Orgy conjure up images of barbaric savages ripping each other’s limbs apart, they can also become more expansive and while ‘The Last of the Summer’s Wine’ is still a seething cauldron it’s played out against a grand sweeping choral swirl. And yes, the classic 1970s/80s BBC sitcom featuring Nora Batty, Compo, Clegg and Foggy is the lyrical inspiration behind this track (and I never thought I’d say that in a review of a metal album!) The incessant hammering present on the rather mouthy ‘70 Dead pt 2: The Scarecrow Of Medan’ is another bad-tempered beast snorting away with unbridled fury.
The piano solo ‘Waiting for the End’ offers a brief departure from the chaos but the lull is a fleeting one, with Morgue Orgy returning to type on the subsequent title track. ‘IT LURKS BENEATH!!!’ (their punctuation, not mine) is another monster with keyboard king Paul Carter almost moving into Dr Who territory with his silky synth skills. The Last Man on Earth ends with another injection of Brummie power in the form of ‘In the Smoke of the Green Ghost’.
The band came up with an interesting marketing tool (and yes you may know what’s coming here) in the not inconsiderable shape of a meaty black dildo. Their reputation for being a bunch of likely lads also extended to asking their Twitter followers to send them topless images. Generously this invitation was extended to fans of both sexes. As gimmicks go it’s great stuff and wholesome fun but don’t allow such antics to pull the wool completely over your eyes. Morgue Orgy are a cracking band, this is a tremendous debut album, and the illustrious list of Birmingham metal bands can now be extended by one.
8 out of 10
Track Listing:
- They Came From Outer Space
- 4 Days
- Phantasms of March
- The Last of the Summer’s Wine
- Barnum & 399
- 70 Dead pt 2: The Scarecrow of Medan
- Castle Freak
- Waiting for the End
- The Last Man On Earth (Diary of George)
- IT LURKS BENEATH!!!
- Paradise
- In the Smoke of the Green Ghost
