Review by Carl on October 26, 2026.

Death/doom metal is a genre that, for me personally, is very hit-or-miss. In my experience, it either delivers a solid dose of battering intensity and blood-curdling heaviness or turns into a total yawnfest, drab enough to put even the most ardent insomniac to sleep. There's not a whole lot of middle ground between those two extremes.

It's in the first category that we find the good folks of Moros and their second full-length album. These guys serve up a mean, vitriolic concoction of doomed-out heaviness and thundering old-school death metal aggression, and they do it in style. The slow, punishing sections feel as though the listener is being ground between two millstones made of armored concrete, with blunt riffs chugging and plowing forward in the finest Cianide tradition. The grinding guitar tone only adds to the effect, delivering sheer heaviness in spades. In lesser hands, this formula could easily devolve into a monotonous slog, but Moros injects its sonic stream of lava with enough bluntly pounding uptempo passages to keep the listener engaged throughout. This approach brought not only the aforementioned Cianide to mind, but also Mythic, Vomitrot, and the Dutch band Mourning — comparisons that certainly don't bother me in the slightest.

Fittingly, this blend of lumbering doom and battering primitivism is steeped in an acidic atmosphere, largely thanks to an angry, bellowing roar that sounds genuinely terrifying and menacing. All these elements combine to create a veritable cinder block of an album: one that offers precious little respite but delivers the goods through merciless doses of doom and gloom, punctuated by utterly savage bursts of caveman pummeling. Add a few subtle, somewhat psychedelic guitar touches here and there, and you've got yourself a fine slice of underground metal.

Although Moros constantly brings other names from the genre to mind, I really dig this second album. It sounds heavy yet clear in a rough-and-ready sort of way, while delivering heaps of doomed-out heaviness and berserker aggression in equal measure. If names like Coffins, Winter, Divine Eve, and the bands mentioned above ring a bell, Cemetery Hallucinations is right up your alley. It won't break any new ground, but when it comes to more than capable death/doom metal, this damn well slaps!

Rating: 8.5 out of 10