Review: “Morbid Delusions” by Nefariym

Taking inspiration from the golden era of early 90’s Death Metal, a time that saw the release of the “Cause Of Death” by Obituary, “Blessed Are The Sick” by Morbid Angel and “Left Hand Path” by Entombed to name but three are Australian old school Death Metal trio Nefariym. An outfit conceived in Melbourne, Australia in 2019 by Mark Kelson (Vocals, Guitar, Bass) and Richie Poate (Lead Guitar), both of the melodic doom band The Eternal, who you could only imagine were looking to write something to scratch an itch that their regular squeeze wouldn’t touch, the line up was completed when they were joined by a drummer simply known as Morbid…

…starting with a sound that could be loosely described as flies buzzing around a rotting corpse, the debut from Nefariym rises from beyond the grave with “Succubus“, a classic tale of a demon in female for who appears in dreams to seduce men leading to their eventual death. A ripper of a that takes a page from the playbook of bands like Pestilence, it’s full of sinister melodies, haunting hooks and throat shredding vocals from Kelson that are pure evil, which pretty much sets the tone for the album as a whole. Poate brings some classic era solos to the table on the likes of “Tearing The Flesh From The Bone” that use the whammy bar to full effect while “Wallow In The Filth” has a far more intricate one. Stabbing blast beats and transitions into Groove drive riffs make for the album highlights bringing that instant headbang to cuts like “Endless Decay” however some of the dirge laden Doom Metal moments don’t come off as well as intended. The demonic and often bowel threatening guttural vocals simply don’t having enough range to take them as far as they need to go, something not helped by the choice of guitar tone for the rhythmic side which isn’t always heavy enough to support them when they go off piste. The end result of that leaves you with moments of Death Doom that sound like nails dragging on a chalkboard in long sections of drawn out anguish; you’re waiting for the swing back that punches you in the face on those cuts and it doesn’t always materialise. That being said, this is a debut album so given the four incendiary cuts on this one, you’d hope they’d pursue more in that vein next time around and cut the Doom stuff out completely because cuts like the rampaging “The Seeds Of Hate” with its blistering blitzkrieg of blast beats and Gatecreeper esq guitar parts is far more appealing that the slower moments here [6/10]

Track listing

1. Veiled In Death (Intro)
2. Succubus
3. A Morbid Delusion
4. Tearing The Flesh From The Bone
5. Wallow In The Filth
6. Monolithic Dread
7. Humanity Falls
8. Endless Decay
9. The Seeds Of Hate
10. Into The Blackened Abyss
11. Circle Of The Tyrants (Celtic Frost cover)

“Morbid Delusions” by Nefariym is out 24th September 2021 via Inverse Records