Forty years beyond forming initial bonds, thirty years after their first decade-built legacy came to a close, and fourteen years since officially reforming Sheboygan, Wisconsin-based death/thrash metal quintet Morbid Saint took about three years to develop this dreamed-of but not necessarily expected third full-length album. That should not suggest that these Midwest death-thrash idealists have taken lightly to their craft, that they’ve lost touch with the high standards of the past, or that they were having trouble pulling the trigger but rather it seems the line-up needed to get it right… to check the authenticity of their result for this one to finally rip out the chamber. ‘Swallowed By Hell‘ is the sort of record you could only get from lived intensity, no need to force out a depiction of a world gone mad here as the readily apparent internal collapse of the western world inspired them to crack away harder at the singular riff-centric muse they’d not conjured for decades. For better or worse these folks are living up to the name, holding fast to that core brutal thrash character associated with it without desperately trying to sound like it is 1991 all over again.

Morbid Saint began playing together around 1984 and formed as a band officially circa 1985, having been collectively enthused by the heavy metal and thrash at the time. They’d pulled together what gear they could and eventually reached a point where they were able to practice/rehearse on a daily basis on the walk up to their first official recordings. For the sake of context if they’d had any contemporaries within ~driving distance along Lake Michigan during the mid-point of their decade-long run we could point directly to Num Skull and perhaps Impact who showed up a bit later on as bands built from a similar foil who developed in different ways. They were all leaning much heavier than where they’d started and that came from hitting the strings as much as possible. The band’s linkages with manager Eric Grief (R.I.P., who’d eventually dropped them to focus on his work with Death) found them linked up with a production company for their first demo tape (‘Lock Up Your Children‘, 1988) which’d found the band with a brand-new vocalist in Pat Lind who’d brought a unique rasping vocal affect (a la Sadus, earlier Kreator) to the fray. A focus on matching the ruthlessly aggressive style from drummer Lee Reynolds set their sound in a rare category of extreme (or “brutal”) classic thrash in hindsight, though the original tape purportedly had an incorrect pitch/tempo applied to the recording, giving it an unrealistic sound. While they’d deserved some recognition back in the day for how much that tape smoked a lot of the death/thrash at the time in terms of raw energy, they didn’t receive much notice from labels at the time.

After correcting, or, at least modifying the issues with that first tape it was eventually re-released as the band’s debut full-length album (‘Spectrum of Death‘, 1990) a record which has been an underground darling in hindsight and discussed heavily in online retro-thrash circles since the early 2000’s, include twenty-something me in that group, eventually prompting bootlegs from smaller entities who’d seen and shared the buzz (see similar: Demolition Hammer, Protector, etc.) You can read a bit of my fandom, some heavier criticism and whatnot on Thrash ‘Til Death Pt. 33 from back in 2019 where I flub a few facts here and there in terms of their next promotional demo being ‘The Black Tape‘ (1993) which took songs from their never released (or distributed) pre-production recordings circa 1992 (aka the infamo9us ‘Destruction System‘ demo). Those recordings which were finally given a polish and a proper release over twenty years later as ‘Destruction System‘ (2015); Morbid Saint‘s infamy and love-in-hindsight eventually grew to the point of proper licensing and reissues, some new songs being recorded and an official resurrection around ~2010 with various original members involved since. I’m not sure what anyone would’ve expected from the band beyond that point but in 1992 ‘Destruction System‘ had developed a clear death metal groove and brutality beyond the thrashing extremes of their first demo/album but they were very much a death/thrash metal band by the most classic definition, in my opinion.

Thirty years after their initial disbandment in 1994 ‘Swallowed by Hell‘ has two major things going for it, first, the two original guitarists (Jay Visser, Jim Fergades) and vocalist (Pat Lind) have returned and each seems to have a clear as day sense of what the Morbid Saint sound was and what it is today as a natural extension of themselves and the still-extreme thrash they’ve always had fun chipping away at. Second, and probably most important here, they’ve still got riffs and maniac vocals to deliver those ideas with, a forceful but not flatly blasted sensation which I’d compare with stuff like Hypnosia, Attomica, and Besieged. Not the most original work but with convincing energy and a heavy focus on reaching the extreme death-edge of thrash metal. Maybe it’ll sound pretentious on my part but successfully pulling this off comes down to enduring taste in these things, having a distinct and undying sensibility for what level of energy and attack is going to skin a death-thrash fan’s skull. They’ve still got it and in most cases this means a faster, double-bass kicking pace which is upheld by drummer DJ Bagemehl, who fully socks the kit for the duration of this album. Expect an album dense with riffs, wall to wall declarative frustration, and a far more energetic command than expected which keeps the pedal down and pushing the needle for speed and intensity for its duration.

‘Swallowed by Hell‘ is a strange beast at first glance with its violent Ed Repka neck-choppin’ action on the cover art and their classic (late 70’s prog-rock gone NWOBHM lookin’) logo in blood red up top. The first impression comes close to appearing as a late 2000’s retro-thrash album but as we chunk into the ‘Extreme Aggression‘-tinged ride of the main verse riffs of opener ‘Rise From the Ashes‘ there is a clear and balanced modernity to the recording here which slaps the cartoon smile off the listener’s face and just starts killing its way through a set of ten ~4-5 minute songs. Production values are dark and limited in space, encapsulating the drums in a way which avoids their bleed into every element of their previous demo-level recordings, and this allows some dynamic space for the vocals to inhabit, a springing-low bass guitar tone anchoring the many gnarled-up riff-runs to come, and emphasizes nails-hard guitar tones in volatile pairing. This allows a precision read of the rhythms throughout, creates the sensation of compression (a la ‘Epidemic of Violence‘, for example) without actually clobbering and cutting any one performance down to size. The bombardment of the material on ‘Swallowed by Hell‘ helps to retain their ‘old school’ unhinged personae, essentially remaining canonical in their actual craft as these high fidelity production values recontextualize the impact of their ideas to an extra order of magnitude without totally sterilizing their gig.

Brutality was a performative strike of a different caliber when these guitarists gained their major muscle memory for the riff and the compositions here, which were mostly crafted through remote note-sharing, collaboration and regular rehearsals in the span of three years, are taut and precise in a different way than before. As we consider the number of physical gestures, grooves and volleys they communicate at high speeds here it seems they’ve worked to directly build upon and add to where they were headed back in 1992 rather than recreating their now best-known debut; There’d always been a wrist-cracking mayhemic strike in the way that Morbid Saint constructed their riffs and here I’d felt (especially as we hit the title track, “Swallowed by Hell”) there is an additionally verbose and percussive, bullet-spraying quality to their attack which splits the difference between the barreling mid-paced death-thrash of ‘Destruction System‘ and the wrathful, clawing determination of their debut album. Even if we don’t get the scraggly hissing nox of that first demo tape I’m not sure that’d have been as interesting as seeing what impact their style has with a proper render and a still defiant attitude applied.

This focus on front to back riff-heavy maul is all well and good, more than was expected and enough to kick this one to above-average status, but I figure most thrash inclined folks will eventually go looking for some manner of memorable songwriting amidst all of the coarse shouting and churning thrash-dance of it all. Consider Morbid Saint‘s sensibilities geared toward the limits away from plain tunefulness in thrash, still presenting classic song structures but leaning into an impressive dynamic and orchestration of rhythmic changes rather than melodic songcraft. Much of Side A deals in what I’d consider run-on, declarative ‘Oppressing the Masses‘-esque songs which center around developing a notable groove (“Fear Incarnate” and “Swallowed by Hell”, especially) or the ranting push one’d expect from a late 80’s thrash metal band (“Pine Tuxedo”, “Burn Pit”) as all of these moments trade in different shades of adrenaline-stained movement but it quickly becomes clear they’re not out to stray from the tunnel vision of the album’s directive which is basically “depict Hell on Earth as it is today” in a fantastical not directly political set of scenes. My favorite pieces on the record stray a bit more than usual, find tangential moments and/or heavier highs (see: “Fear Incarnate”) or simply find smart ways to connect and create more of a slipstream in their transitional moments (“Bleed Them Dry” + “Pine Tuxedo”). This makes for a consistent and tightly performed full listen of ‘Swallowed by Hell‘ where they’ve managed a distinct thread recognizably achieved by the band.

If you’re somehow a die-hard Morbid Saint fan and prefer the demo-level rally of their first decade material no doubt ‘Swallowed by Hell‘ should feel relevant enough to those who’d ever dug deep enough into the innards of ‘Destruction System‘ and mused over what they might’ve done next. If you’re looking the next big thing, or, anything other than classic death/thrash metal sounds… that isn’t their goal with album number three. You will only find reinforcement of a decades-auld focal point and refinement of machine-gunned grooves here and they’ve never been one-thousand percent original in their compositions. The real test of record like this is how much of beast it becomes as a complete front-to-back thread when left on repeat for ~3-4 hours at a time. Cranked too high and left to do its thing ‘Swallowed by Hell‘ left me with a body high similar to a full day spent next to ground shaking heavy machinery, you feel the trampled-on, body mushing aggression of it in your bones for hours after retreating. A high recommendation.

https://morbidsaint.com/merch

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