Genre distributions from country to country are fascinating to me. You could devote entire studies to why certain sounds develop and proliferate more in one country (or part thereof) than another. Iceland is predominantly known for post-metal, black metal, and post-black metal, with varying degrees of folk. What it isn’t known for is doom metal, which might come as a surprise given the cold, isolation, and endless winter nights. Morpholith aims to break through the permafrost with their debut Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics (hereafter just called Distributions because the full title is several mouthfuls). Can the fledgling band make its mark?
Concerning heaviness, Morpholith is aiming for tectonic. Riffs are made up of giant, bottom-loaded chords, replete with crunchy distortion. They often create space in their strides by coasting on the final echoing thrum (“Hellscaper”) or approaching funeral levels of protraction (“Exoportal”), with only the shorter “Metabaron” and “Narcofactory” cranking the bpm into mid-paced levels. Though a few sources tagged Distributions as stoner doom, I disagree with the former half of that take; it’s too harsh, too dark, too icy, and despairing. Morpholith has more in common with long-form sludge doom like Ufomammut, viewed through a filter of Icelandic metal. This is particularly notable in the vocals, which surprised me with their versatility, using everything from moody cleans to burly roars to moist gurgling growls to vicious screams.1 It’s one of the best features of Distributions, and it’s unfortunate their potential is only partially fulfilled.
It appears to me Morpholith may be aiming for a kind of heavy hypnotism, supported by the occasional appearance of psychedelicisms like the bendy solos on “Dismalium” and “Exoportal.” But that type of quality is difficult to capture, and overshooting the target leads to understimulating repetitiveness. The majority of the tracks suffer from this one way or another, usually because of over-reliance on a single riff, droning on and on for minutes at a time. This wouldn’t really be an issue if the riffs themselves were more engaging, but they tend toward fairly predictable patterns captured in a handful of chords, seemingly putting more import on the droning, crushing aesthetic of individual notes than how they are strung together.
When Morpholith trends away from these issues, it reveals that underneath the excess of dirge is a band with the ability to write some killer tunes, but they often misallocate time and focus. The shrill solo early in “Exoportal” and the slow build across its second half are very good, but the solo is surrounded by too much empty space and the build takes too long to prevent sag. “Dismalium” has an excellent section where free-form chanting vocals overlay a torrential riff, but when the vocals start petering out, the riff keeps going for another several minutes. Early “Narcofactory” leans too heavily on a basic bass line, but the transition from morose clean vocals into nasty blackened screams is killer. And the production, in spite of the low DR score, has quite a nice and nasty sound, lending credit to the grim and cold dystopia Morpholith attempts to paint.
Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics is a classic case of good ideas smeared out over too many minutes. Man-spreading riffs, spending too much time without switching gear, tracks that should have started later and ended sooner, all the usual suspects have come out to play. But Morpholith have a steel core beneath the overflowing mass, with their solid vocal array and a sweet solo or two. Hearing the Icelandic palette applied to psychedelic sludge doom is a damn promising premise. I hope Morpholith will deliver upon it in full next time.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Interstellar Smoke Record
Websites: morpholith.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/morpholith
Releases Worldwide: October 24th, 2024
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