Mortal

Item: Mortal
Author: Robert Berman

(1996)

Reviewed by Robert Berman

Discogs YouTube

Label 5 Minute WalkThe LighthouseApril 1996

electronic industrial industrial rock

Some targets just won't stand still. Trying to describe Mortal's style of music is like trying to paint a picture of a kaleidoscope-you can barely get started before the picture has completely changed. Mortal started out with a strong industrial attack on Lusis, followed by the even more aggressive Fathom and a live EP. But Wake and Pura found brothers Jerome and Jyro dipping their fingers in every musical pie from diet-techno to note-for-note Beatles cover tunes.

Now, less than five months after the release of Pura, Mortal is reaching back to the sounds which gathered their original fan base on a new album that, while not rising to the heights of their early heyday, is still good enough to remind us what all the fuss about Mortal was in the first place.

This album was at one point billed as "Industrial Praise and Worship." The "Industrial" label is frequently accurate, with a return to heavy sequencing and crunchy guitars and, more importantly, the raspy scream which was too-often subdued on more recent albums. The album boasts a healthy collection of novel drum samples, with an overall tempo easily two or three notches faster than Pura. "Overmind" recalls manic songs like "Ne Plus Ultra," and "Kingflux" compares favorably to "Mytho-X." Even mid-tempo songs, like the album opener "Mission," ride along on a groove that draws you in. Others, like "Fray Lagoon" and "Rail, Road," take a middle approach, mixing heavy sequencing with pop melodies instead of the metallic hues which color much of the album. And the solo guitar-ballad style found on Wake recurs in "Anything."

The "Praise and Worship" label sticks halfway, inasmuch as every Mortal album tends to mix straightforward spiritual lines like, "Here am I, send me on a mission from God" with intellectual musings like, "It seems the audience still believes that human beings are the sole proprietors of evil." Only "Mighty Force" contains the short verse structure normally associated with praise songs; other than that, song subjects revolve around the usual Mortal lyrical axis of seeking truth, confessing sin, and pondering the miracle of God coming to live within man.

There's good reason to leave this album self-titled as simply Mortal, for it brings together many of the different directions the band has pursued since its inception. Only the sci-fi movie samples which characterized the first two albums are unrepresented on this release. If you ever liked Mortal for any reason, this album has more of that style for you to enjoy. On this, their third "farewell" album, the Word is still alive, with music to match.