The name Morta Skuld may ring familiar to the seasoned extreme metal fan. You know the type. The nameless ghouls on the edge of the pit armed with their grimy battle jackets and salty disposition at Summer Slaughter every year. For the denim-less, know that Morta Skuld were one of the dozens of death metal bands lost in the mid-90s shuffle, but reanimated in 2012. Oh, and Wounds Deeper Than Time (Peaceville) is their first proper LP since 1997.

I’d like to preface this review by stating that we as listeners have been spoiled somewhat by late comebacks from the likes of Gorguts and Carcass. Colored Sands (Season of Mist) and Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast) respectively, were so awesome that it’s easy to forget turkeys like Illud Divinum Insanus (Season of Mist – no, we’ll never forgive or forget that one, Morbid Angel).

So where does Wounds Deeper Than Time rank? While no Surgical Steel, it’s certainly not an embarrassment. ‘Breathe in the Black’ doesn’t waste the listener’s time and quickly settles into the tight groove that Six Feet Under tend to aim for, but not reach.

Drummer Eric House keeps the riffs in line with rapid-fire double kicks and smooth blast transitions. ‘My Weakness’ has a brisk Black Dahlia Murder pace and is loaded with fancy fretwork courtesy of Dave Gregor and Craig Nienas. Also, ‘In Judgement’ is worth your time for Jason Hellman’s stringy bass lines alone.

There are many fun moments to be found on Wounds…, but there are also songs like ‘Against the Origin’ and the title track which just fall into the groove metal patterns frequently followed by Devildriver and countless others. The verse-chorus-verse songwriting convention can also be limiting to a potential death metal jam like ‘Devour the Chaos.’ And that’s not to say that there isn’t room for more conventional song structure in extreme music as Exhumed has honed it to a razor sharp edge, but it’s too restricting here.

The battle jacket crowd should be pleased here.

And why did we settle on calling those things battle jackets?

6.0/10

HANSEL LOPEZ