Slam Spotlight Part 10

The guy not holding the axe is actually a very nice man

Alright guys, now that Slam Spotlight has reached double digits too, we're going all out for this one. It's a celebration, goddammit! Not only is this next band well-known (at least in brutal death circles), but it's kind of hard to even classify them solely as slam. In reality, they're more like slow, sludgy, old school brutal deathgrind, but they play some slams too, so for the purposes of this article we'll just call them slam. It's easier that way. Plus I've really been wanting to write an article about this band for a while now. The band in question is the Yonkers, New York horror-obsessed two-piece Mortician.

Although they've been together for over twenty years now, Mortician has managed to stay firmly rooted in the underground, one of the tr00est of the tr00, and this is most likely because their sound really hasn't changed from Day One. Their whole songwriting process has adhered to the following formula pretty much nonstop: horror movie audio intro, distorted-as-fuck bass riff, guitar comes in and follows riff a couple measures later, constant blasting from the drum machine, incomprehensible demonic growls, end. The lengths of the songs vary, and oftentimes the audio intros end up being longer than the songs themselves, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred this is how the structure is set up. Some people might call this monotonous and boring, whereas I would say if it ain't broke don't fix it. After I kicked them in the balls with my steel-toed boots, of course. Alright, now that you have that amusing visual in your head, sit back and enjoy the title track from the band's 1999 full length Chainsaw Dismemberment (the fifteenth track out of twenty-fucking-eight total, I might add). If you don't want to sit through the audio intro the song itself starts around the one minute mark, but why would you want to do that? The intro's creepy and awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrH0qmiwFtE

Gnarly. Mortician haven't released anything in a few years, but I was lucky enough to see them live at the Hostile City Deathfest in Philly last summer, and they fucking killed it, so I know for a fact they're still active. Chainsaw Dismemberment and the rest of the band's discography is available through Relapse Records (damn they just keep popping up everywhere) and Redrum Records, if you liked what you heard be sure to add the rest to your collection, 'cause it's all pretty much the same thing. Which is AWESOME! Leave your thoughts in the comments.

-BK