Review by Nathan on December 23, 2021.

We’ve finally come full circle. It’s been about a decade that we’ve been going through “OSDM revival” now, which is a sufficient amount of time to start having generic third and fourth stringers pop up, circulate, and even attain a small amount of success. Ever listen to a new band, think “well that sure was extremely ok” and then never think about listening to them ever again? You probably don’t even remember if that’s happened because that’s how insignificant the experience would be. Anyhow, that’s Into The Atrium Of Inhuman Morbidity for you.

The surface sound is fine, Mephitic Grave clearly likes old death metal and emulates its essential qualities - diminished chromatic scale patterns, lots of grooving on the bottom string, you know the drill. Even the production is on the thin side, as if we couldn’t already tell this band really likes the early 90s. The problem is that instead of taking these ideas and sculpting them through their own lens, Mephitic Grave is content to just present those ideas as they are. Instead of ripping off the idiosyncrasies of the classics (which would have at least been moderately more intriguing), they took the building blocks from “me too” bands like Acheron and Killing Addiction and reimagined them without any extra color, adding slower riffs in for “atmosphere” (i.e. when they couldn’t think of a better transition and got lazy).

It is honestly stunning how little of this album I remember. Even as I listen to it while writing this review I’m trying to note specific sections of this album that work a little bit better or worse, just to try and underscore the effect Into The Atrium Of Inhuman Morbidity has, and it’s near impossible because every section sounds exactly the fucking same. There are no peaks or valleys in these songs, even though each of them have many drastic shifts in tempo and theme, because they haven’t been written in a way that gives the riffs any sort of push-and-pull with one another. They cycle through a few different ominous themes, slow down when their drummer gets tired, and then stew in a few other ideas that only seem related because they rip off similar bands form the 90s. When a song ends, it offers no closure - though not in a cliffhanger way that makes you want to hear what’s next. It’s more of a relief that it’s done, because you were never invested in where the song was going to begin with.

There are lots of other little things that irk me about Into The Atrium Of Inhuman Morbidity - the growls are all vocal fry and have no breath, the drums are muffled which makes it hard to get in the pocket, the bass had the potential and space in the mix for a super thick tone but instead is just as thin as the guitars - but I’d only go in depth about those if there were fewer things to nitpick about this record to begin with. I don’t want to continue to dogpile on an unknown band that’s just trying their best to make a name for themselves, but Mephitic Grave is gonna have to put in waaaay more effort (not to mention fresh ideas) to make themselves stand out in an OSDM scene that is getting more crowded by the minute.

Rating: 3.5 out of 10