Mr. Death

I was introduced to Mr. Death by the amazing artist Gustav of http://www.gugerart.com. Since I am such a fan of his work (and he’s done work for personal favourites Godhunter and Vomitory, among others, so I figured he knew what good metal is), I clicked over to their Myspace to check them out. Later, I had to buy their album because it was so good, proving that despite this blogging being a lot of fun, it’s also getting pretty expensive, so please start recommending me bands that I will hate for the sake of my bank account!

Compiled of five Swedish guys, Mr. Death describes themselves as an old school death metal band and that’s exactly what they are. Not unlike Warbeast, who are through-and-through old school thrash metal, they’ve found a way to completely strip away all the complexities bands in the genre have added to try and differentiate themselves from everyone else and just went back to basics. There’s something so awesome about that. Sometimes the results aren’t great, such as all the bands who try to do stripped down doom and just sound like a Black Sabbath cover band, down to the identical Ozzy vocals and all. But sometimes, a band has intelligent enough songwriters that can isolate the elements that define the sound and create something new with the old. This is one of those bands.

The more I check out bands, both signed and unsigned, the more I notice the difference between bands that want to sound a certain way but don’t know exactly how, and bands that know exactly what they’re doing. The difference is consistency, and Mr. Death is nothing if not consistently good. Every song on their Myspace delivers the same old school sound without being boring or repetitive. It seems to me they’ve either been playing death metal for a long time, or they’ve loved death metal for even longer.

Among the songs on the Myspace, Celestial Suffering is the highlight for me. It’s off “Death Suits You’, the album that I ultimately ended up purchasing. It has a a really huge sound, riffs with some groove in them and vocals that sit perfectly in the mix; loud enough to play a role while not overpowering the rest of the instruments. I love that there were moments during all of their songs where I was tapping my foot, or nodding my head, or drumming my fingers that were completely involuntary. That’s good music.  Death Suits You is probably going to become my go-to album when I want to listen to death metal, and I’m pretty grateful for the recommendation.

Listening to Mr. Death, I badly wanted to be in a dingy bar with them on stage, rather than on my peaceful, sunny balcony. The sound brought me back to death metal shows I’ve been to in the past. The smell of beer, pot, sweat and a lot of smiling metalheads. Maybe not everyone’s idea of paradise, but it’s up there for me.

Mr. Death on Myspace
Official site
Guger Art