Tempering the basement level impact of brutal death metal down to eerie stretches of mid-paced lunging n’ stabbing aggression Los Angeles, California-based death metal quartet MORTAL WOUND speak to a hellish-yet-imaginative hallucinatory vision of torturous gore and the grown-in cruelty of urban existence here on this debut full-length album. ‘The Anus of the World‘ is all pit-shot chunking and roaring business to start but the harder they weave through these wrenched-up pieces and B-movie ‘ludes the sooner the big ugly personae of their work raises its charred head and flashes a horrified green and yellow smile. These folks are a rare case study wherein they’ve got the currency of USDM style and groove for days but they’ve got more than a passing grade when it comes to the riffs, enough of a substantive grasp on rhythm to ultimately convince and call me back in for more.

Mortal Wound formed back in 2018 between folks involved in Teeth and Kommand at a time where each of those groups were either still formative or moving toward a pure death metal sound and this was about a year before their label Maggot Stomp had hit that peak hype in 2019. Their first demo tape (‘Forms of Unreasoning Fear, 2018) was fantastic in the sense that it was a clever stab at mid-paced brutal death metal that felt like it’d been yanked from the northeast states in the mid-90’s, readable but substantial in that it felt like a genuine article on the brink. So, there is a distinct difference between the Ohio scene that’d hit around that time and the Los Angeles stuff where the Mortician style stuff caught on separate from the groovy hardcore inspired side of things and we don’t hear any clear seepage into that realm until they’d switched to a different drummer (Pat Shea) on their Split with Gutless in 2020 as their second official release. Their whole rhythmic dynamic shape-shifted just enough to notice with a slightly more technical, rolling harder push where they’d begun checking into samples in between most every song. If you are big on early Skinless, Jungle Rot, and Dying Fetus but want an easy-going vibe… Mortal Wound had you covered on their first couple of releases and it definitely helped that their weird-ass taste in album art helped make those first two releases memorable at the time. For this full-length debut they’ve once again swapped in a new drummer and the pace and scope of their songcraft has once again adapted to a slightly different ear for arrangement and pacing.

‘The Anus of the World‘ is an amalgamation of all that Mortal Wound‘ve picked up since 2018, the natural result of chipping away at their craft for five or six years, while also making room for Devlin Baldwin (Calcemia) on drums. His style is similar to that of their original drummer (Erol Ulug), easing up on tempo with less of a technical feature up front and never forcing the guitars to punch straight to the point. Much as we could accuse them of being a part of the greater ‘new-old school’ of brutal death inspired music via their Maggot Stomp-fed peers (Sanguisugabogg, 200 Stab Wounds) these folks err far more squarely on the side of classic death metal pace and without the frantic riff saladry any direct comparison might incur. That said the ~eight minutes worth of samples and interludes on this album are both functional as spacers for the seven ~5-6 minute death metal songs that act as the bulk of the experience but they also blur the overall focus of the experience. The moment to moment elasticity of their ‘old school’ grooves ultimately prevails as they lock into it but they don’t feel all that eager to define their gig out the gates.

Sample to sample, riff-to-riff there is an irreverent, stoned, antisocial attitude behind Mortal Wound‘s fast-thumping and gutturally roared style out the gates that goes beyond the usual murderous whip of brutal death, slow skanking it from the second riff of opener “Found Dead in a Bush” in a way that speaks to the cavebro set from the mid-to-late 2010’s and squarely avoids the kitchen sink post-whatever touch of a lot of the nearby Los Angeles scene’s attempts to stand out or modern up. I don’t hear slams, no post-metal level non-statements, and they don’t spend any serious time focusing on the hardcore side of things and to the point that the first couple of pieces (including the ripping groove pusher “Tunnel Rat”) on ‘The Anus of the World‘ are up to snuff in terms of death metal wilding off the rip. I think the hill to climb for the average brutal death fan is basically just how slow-going this stuff feels to start and not for a lack of actual speed but for an avoidance of outright belligerent drum patternation, as I hit around ~4 minutes into “Drug Filled Cadaver” and the pace nearly halves their whole deal just felt slugged out and simplified compared to the mid-to-late 90’s brutal death adjacency their general register implies ’til we consider a record like Skinless‘ ‘Foreshadowing Our Demise‘ and it all kinda aligns in my mind at least.

By the time “Born Again Hard” hits with its pinch harmonic spiked riff we’ve been hit by about four songs which use the same chunk of the guitar neck to develop their main verse statement and this more-or-less manifests the general voice and cadence of Mortal Wound‘s rhythm guitar driven songcraft. Quick dips into solos, groove metal breakdowns, and some pitch-shifted vocals do well to distract from the narrow-band attack of it all but from my point of view ‘The Anus of the World‘ feels like a pretty standard late 90’s style death metal album with some solid grasp of pure and fairly simple arrangements. That still leaves room for “Engulfed in Liquid Hellfire” to stand out for its faster flits between modes and movement, “Spirit of the Bayonet” to serve at least one big riff to start, and closer “Royally Fucked Forever to work in a big ‘Dead and Buried‘-level groove to finish the thought; I’d no real gripes with the greater listening experience beyond the persistent use of samples/interludes to frame the bulk of the album. As far as mid-paced yet brutal death metal style goes this is a solid record which never fully lacked in finding its pocket and hitting it though I’d say there isn’t much here in the way of unforgettable signature beyond aesthetics and style points, though a few of the bigger verse riffs early on did kinda stick.

Much as I would always rush out and catch a live show when it comes to this type of death metal Mortal Wound haven’t fully made the case for their greater personae, the central topic, the “knack” that’d make a die-hard fan out of me just yet. These songs are convincing enough, plenty of riffs to ride along with and all manner of aesthetic style in hand, though I was left without any major enthusiasm for their craft after the first fifteen or so spins. That said there is something fucked up yet classic about ‘The Anus of the World‘ that’d convinced me to give it a fair deal and I’d ultimately walked away from it feeling like they’d delivered upon the promise of their first demo tape in a considerable way. A moderately high recommendation.

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