Mortemia - Misere Mortem

"The One I Once Was" features some great opening choir work to really set the tone for what to expect before the keyboards come soaring in and the guitars start chugging away. Morten keeps his death metal growl which goes along smoothly with the mix of harsh and soft orchestrations. One thing that happens is the choir and Morten's vocals never overlap; each can be heard clearly and are given their own space to shine. There's plenty of melodic solos involved so it isn't just repetitive riffs. Not all the tracks start out orchestrally; "The Chains That Wield My Mind" is a bit heavier in the metal sense and sounds more like Sirenia in the music sense. Choirs are still present but not as much. "Wheel Of Fire" has a great heavy introduction and "The Vile Bringer" has a good chugging rhythm. "The Candle At The End Of The Tunnel" is probably the heaviest track when not including the choir part and really lets Morten show off his growling ability.

While this may be symphonic death metal at it's best, perhaps Morten makes too much use of a good thing. Many of the tracks sound the same in the sense it's metal, choir, metal, choir, etc. and the range of choir vocals seems a bit limited. Instead of offering solo opera and tenor vocals everything is chohesive together and sounds the same, which still sounds good, but there could have been a lot more potential in really making the orchestrations sound better. That being said, Mortemia is certainly a project worth checking out regardless of how much the tracks sound a like because it is an excellent take on the gothic inspirations that Morten comes up with for his other band, Sirenia. If one were to take away the choir part then the rest of the album is completely Morten alone, and his skill as a guitarist, keyboardist, vocalist, and drummer really rounds out his musical ability to impress. Fans of the latter will probably already have this simply out of appreciation for what the man can do already.