Morbific – Bloom Of The Abnormal Flesh Review

[Cover artwork by Chase Slaker of Caustic Wound / Mortiferum]

If you’re anything like me—an old tousled possum living out his best years deep in the woods, trying to avoid the temptation of feasting on people’s delicious garbage—then you’ve long grown weary of, um, PVDM™ (Pit Viper Death Metal). Your species occasionally enjoys bouts of insight, so I assume you know what that is, yes? Nine times out of ten, it involves a few of the shaggier, more well-padded fellas that work together down at the microbrewery discovering a mutual love of Mortician and therefore deciding to throw their smelly hats into the ring. This is obviously not the worst thing to happen to the planet in the last decade or so, but it’s gotten to the point where a possum can’t even amble through the sewage treatment plant without some guy in a 4XL Dying Fetus shirt trying to force me into uncomfortable selfie situations while his band attempts promo pics.

“LOOKIE, CODY! A POSSUM. LET’S FORCE EEM TO DRANK A FOUR LOKO.”

Pffff. Like I’d ever need to be forced to down a Four Loko. This ain’t my first rodeo, whatever the hell your band name is. Wait… Are you guys called Five Mooseknuckle Shuffle? I think I’ll go sit in the middle of the road for awhile.

Anywho… PVDM: Too many custodial engineers in the kitchen with FFOs pointing toward Autopsy, Deeds of Flesh, Incantation and The ‘Tish is my point. Thankfully, however, there are always exceptions to the rule, which is where the scruffy lads that comprise Morbific come into the narrative.

Firstly, this isn’t PVDM. Rather, Morbific play ankient death metal that sounds like it was made very naturally by creatures that were meant to play ankient death metal. Picture, if you will, the three Morbifickers still in their early teens: They’ve just stolen a fresh pack of Pall Malls and a fifth of snazzy peach schnapps from some of their parental units; they scamper off into the wilderness to experience corruption away from prying eyes; and they’ve of course dragged whatever passed for a boombox a decade ago along with them, supplanting the gentle sounds of nature with bog-born death metal more suited to the consumption of poison.

The three heroes eventually come across a cave, survey its unconcerned depths, and commence with the monkey business, only to suddenly realize its true innkeeper—a god-like she-bear not accustomed to mostly furless callers—ain’t too keen on uninvited guests bearing zero gifts. The bear naturally eats the lads, then promptly craps them out a few hours later after mowing through about a hundred pounds of huckleberries under a softening sun. The boys are reborn in excrement, and not being able to tell the difference in their overall look, they head home for supper, hoping their collective breath doesn’t smell too peachy or Pall Mally.

Mum: “So, son, how was school today?”

Morbificker: “UnnnnngggghhhOWWWRaaaarrrghhhh….”

Mum: [blinks perplexedly]

Pop: “Teenagers, amirite? Please pass the heavily salted fish and lingonberry sauce.”

Now touched with the charmed threefold metamorphosis that is death, partial metabolization and rebirth through excretion, the lads reenter the world with the innate ability to tap into the same fetid pool of rotting enthusiasm that gifted the greats of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with the power of crumbling death. And blessed be, the result is an achievement of natural putridity that—suck it, PVDM—does not just sound like a carbon copy of Severed Survival.

It is wrong to call music such as this “happy,” no? But let’s go ahead and confirm that it’s…. a positive force? Upbeat? Well, as positive and upbeat as you can muster with song titles like “Panspermic Blight,” that is. And really, that’s an important distinction because the person riding co-pilot who doesn’t happen to boogie-board on your same wavelength is going to think the cheese slid off your cracker for BIP-BAP-A-SKOODILY-SKOOPing along with Bloom of the Abnormal Flesh as you steer on into the farmer’s market on a positively delightful Saturday morning. Hey, one person’s WHAM is another hero’s Morbific.

Yes, you in the back.

“Hi. First of all, thanks for eating ticks. Possums are great. My question is this: Does Morbific bring anything new to the potluck we haven’t had before?”

Great question. Fuck no, they don’t. This is fried something-or-other that goes great with all the other fried something-or-others already stacked to the rafters on the table, and whether or not it might actually be fried Rocky Mountain Oysters doesn’t really matter if you go ahead and tip back that third Steel Reserve. Hey, at least the band didn’t bring ambrosia salad, amirite?

What Morbific does to separate themselves from the endless slew of emulators is rooted in the clever ways they choose to embellish the corners. Yes, it’s death metal that underscores being slow ’n’ moldy, but consuming this particular mold will not only open your third eye, it’ll promptly give it conjunctivitis. Maggoty, wriggling leads? Of course. But here they sound like they’re actually being played by happy maggots. Hell, there’s a fucking BASS SOLO in “Menagerie of Grotesque Trophies,” ffs.

Lots of flavor in the decayed vocals, too. Like, most of the time they sound like someone trying to explain to a surgeon how they managed to consume a 20-foot police-issued spike strip, but there are also loads of breakout barks and coughs and howls that echo from some fathomless well. In general, bassist / vocalist Jusa Janhonen sounds quite unwell, and there are oodles of vocalized travesties here that beg the question: Are the insides of this man savagely attempting to become outsides?

A real comedian: “HEY, WHAT’S A POSSUM’S FAVORITE KIND OF MUSIC??? TRASH METAL! GET IT?”

If I could actually have rabies, I’d give it to you so hard right now that your grandkids would be born with it.

I could, however, go for some trash right about now.

DEATH! METAL! RIFFS! DEATH! METAL! RIFFS! Let’s sing it all together!

FUCK YEAH, you bipedal garbagelords! UNNGGGHH! That’s what separates the really good old-school death metal bands from the ones that’ll likely be playing in a Alter Bridge cover band six months from now. And luckily, this is where Morbific really bring the heat. Riffs that march in gross, greasy struts, like with the opening “Smut Club (For the Chosen Scum).” Or howzabout the year’s most crucial riff breakout 1:20 into “From Inanimate Dormancy?” And by gourd, Bloom of the Abnormal Flesh delivers SOME OF THE MOST DANCEABLE RIFFS OF DEATH one could ever hope to prance to, so stop worrying about your vanquished 401Ks and get ready to slap life silly with “Womb of Deathless Deterioration (Trapped in the Essence of Putrescence)” and especially the absolutely bananas title track once it hits around the 2:30-mark.

And of course, it’s all a little bit (but perfectly) loose, like the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair, except instead of Foghat limping through yet another deep-fried interpretation of “Slow Ride,” you get brain-bonks like “Hydraulic Slaughter” (“CRUSH! [scoot scoot scoot] SQUASSHHHHH UACK-uack-uack-uack!”) and ballads like “Crusading Necrotization” to sweep you into the sewers.

Oh yeah, and the album for some reason decides to totally flip the script with “Slithering Decay,” a brief 2-minute closer that unexpectedly D-beats the listener’s ass right into the dirt with—surprise!—utterly melodic riffing that sorta comes across like Heartwork if Heartwork was actually a six month-old gas station tuna fish sandwich that got lost in the impossible-to-reach area between the seat and center console of a trash truck. I would… I would totally eat that, by the way. You gonna eat that, bro? Oh, the delicious trash you humans condemn to your scrapheaps (aka Shangri-la-heaps). Yes, I suppose there’d be no shortage of individuals who’d do similarly with a record like this, but for those of us with truly refined palates, listening to Bloom of the Abnormal Flesh is as gratifying as relishing a smorgasbord of discarded offal splayed on a handy garbage can lid. What more could a creature possibly ask for in 2025?

Bloom of the Abnormal Flesh: A scrumptious treat you can smell from a mile away.