The Sophomore effort "Chronicles Of The Shadowed Ones" from MORPHEUS DESCENDS is now released on three colors of vinyl LP and each limited to 150 copies. This long overdue LP release is presented in a sturdy 350-gram jacket featuring the original artwork as well as the unpublished original intended cover artwork, lyrics and liner notes.
Dark Symphonies, The Crypt and Dark Descent Records are proud to announce a pact with one of New York's finest, MORPHEUS DESCENDS. Formed in 1990 under the MORPHEUS moniker, the band eventually changed their name to MORPHEUS DESCENDS, after the release of their "Adipocere" DOUBLE 7" EP which was put out by Seraphic Decay Records in 1992. After a few lineup changes the 1994 lineup, which included two guys from the Indiana death metal band SUBCONSCIOUS, came together and created the crushing style of doomish crypt rot death metal you hear on the "Chronicles Of The Shadowed Ones" release. Now days most of MORPHEUS DESCNEDS back catalog is highly priced, sought after, very difficult to find, and so it is with pleasure that we are able to bring this material from the murky depths below and into the darkness once more! All audio for this vinyl release of "Chronicles Of The Shadowed Ones" was transferred from the original analog masters for optimal sound. "Chronicles..." was originally released by the band on their label Angel Dust Records / Die Hard Distribution on CD in 1994 and has long since SOLD OUT.
"Chronicles Of Shadowed Ones" is a concept album based on the fictional horror world of Brim Lumley's "Necroscope" series. Its motifs of paranormal powers and the occult, featuring a mythology of deranged vampire-like creatures out of parallel worlds are disturbingly captured by the abrasive atmosphere of the music. Stylistically, unlike the album that precedes it, there is a shift from the rhythmic fast aggression that is the archetypical of the Northeastern American Death Metal tradition i.e. SUFFOCATION, IMMOLATION, INCANTATION. Where on "Chronicles of the Shadowed Ones" MORPHEUS DESCNEDS create a flowing dynamic of crushing and doomy groove while incorporating fast tremolo-picked melodies that border on early wave Swedish Death Metal. Subtly building each transient and meticulous wave of riffing into the brutal and haunting death metal the band is reveled for.
A most intimate contact with the listener is through the extremely dexterous and dynamic drumming. In all its conventional North American primacy, the blasting is clear, frenetic at times, and approaches a more ritualistic and warlike rhythm during the epic apex of the album. The execution is so solid that it personifies the instrumental grandeur of the album, helping to create the distant landscapes carved by the strings. Both prominently echoing throughout each song with the distinctive, expansive, melodic themes which lie within the heroic "The Cruciform Hills", the ominous winding paths set forth by "Cairn of Dumitru", the hopelessness instilled by "Signs Of Gehenna" or the desolate, pessimistic mood of "Autumn Bleed". Another layer to farther the depths of dark atmospheres and the sense of corrupting evilness, are the rough guttural narratives that emanate through each of these musical stories from the "Necropscope". All together "Chronicles Of The Shadowed Ones" is an ominous vortex of musical elements and brooding vocals which create a complex tale of the hunting protoplasmic vampires and their trail of death and corruption.
For the last track "Moupho Alde Ferenc Yaborov" we are subject to cinematic dark ambience which brings forth images of barren caverns with unknown dangers, tainted by fiendish creatures hungry for blood. Frightening monstrous growls infest the audible content of this long track alongside what seems to be very distant feral, tribal rhythms. Thus, with an ambiguous but arguably imaginative resolution we finish one of the finest works of the Golden Era of Death Metal.
* Write up courtesy of: Each label involved, Stein, and Lord Typhus.
