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Review: Mael Mordha - Damned When Dead
Mael Mordha
www.mael-mordha.com
Damned When Dead

Label: Candlelight Records
Year released: 2013
Duration: 47:39
Tracks: 8
Genre: Doom Metal

Rating:
5/5


Review online: November 24, 2013
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
Readers' Rating
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Rated 3.42/5 (68.42%) (19 Votes)
Review

Fourth album for the mighty Mael Mordha, who just keep turning in fucking fantastic work. Their debut was as solid a piece of pagan Doom that has ever been made, and even if the following Gaeltacht Mael Mordha was a bit of a step back, the subsequent Manannan was a rich, textured album with far more depth than it seemed on first blush.

With Damned When Dead the band has dug in and made an album as visceral and heavy as the marvelous Cluain Tarbh with all the shading and multilayered songwriting of Manannan. This album is just a pleasure from the first note. The riffs are hooky yet much more then surface gloss, the songwriting is complex without losing focus, and vocalist Roibeard O Bogail has matured into one of metal's great performers, with a textured, charismatic voice that is always interesting to hear. On the album's clear highlight "All Eire Will Quake" he lays down a performance with such force and magnetism it smokes right off the disc.

I keep waiting for Mael Mordha to make a misstep, but they have rather quietly gone about the business of becoming a fucking first rate band without falling into self-reference or gimmicks. They do their own thing, and they do it fantastically well. This is not a band to miss out on.

More about Mael Mordha...
Review: Cluain Tarbh (reviewed by Sargon the Terrible)
Review: Gaeltacht Mael Mordha (reviewed by Sargon the Terrible)
Review: Manannan (reviewed by Hermer Arroyo)
Review: Manannan (reviewed by Sargon the Terrible)
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