Mouth Of Madness – Event Horizon

Founded back in 2013, Germany’s Mouth of Madness have been deep under the metal radar, or at least this is my first encounter with this metal duo from Berlin. In the meantime, while preparing this review, I could read that they’ve only released one, a haunting self-titled EP in 2016. The band (comprises the following two members; Florian Exner on vocals, guitars and bass & Marko Bieniek on drums) has finally released their debut full length album entitled Event Horizon vis Darkness Shall Rise Productions.

Tracklist:

01. Transhimalaja+ Part I
02. Sex and Thanatos
03. Year of the Dog
04. At the Heart of the Unknown
05. Worms
06. Transhimalaja+ Part II
07. Fireborn
08. Masaan
09. Transhimalaja+ Part III

Judging by the cover alone, and prior to the first spin of it, I was expecting to hear some kind of progressive/experimental metal?!Even after the opening tones of album’s ambient opener “Transhimalaja+ Part I” I was still expecting the same. ‘Fortunately’, at least if you’re a fan of more extreme types of metal, it gets heavier, groovier, and angrier along the way.

Only five out of nine songs on Event Horizon have actual vocals, but they’re all pretty damn impressive. Event Horizon blends aggressive death metal with, at times, doomy and thrashy elements, featuring three ambient pieces composed by ‘Popol Vuh’ (a German musical collective) founder Frank Fiedler. The songs that stands out on this album are the track called “Worms” (with a guest guitar solos by Florian Reichelt of Hellburst) with its sinister gnarly guitars, headbanging groove, thudding drums and throaty/raspy growls is a fantastic song with nice flow. Another great song in my opinion is “Fireborn” due to its epic pace and an easily memorable riff. One more guest appearance is worth of mention here, it’s the one of Franziska Mende who contributed violin to “Masaan”.

Listening and discovering their earlier work, revealing the raw foundation, I noticed that not much have changed since the beginnings of the band as they haven’t changed the formula of their sound much. In other words – it’s inevitable that your sound evolve and develop during the twelve years, incorporating new elements right and left, but the main formula and their songwriting remains the same. Event Horizon features a clean, crisp, and slightly minimalist production allowing the composition to shine.

Overall, the 36-minute Event Horizon proved to be a well-crafted album, although not as progressive as I’ve initialy expected. It’s rather dark, rough and menacing piece of music recommended for fans of Morbid Angel, Tribulation, Venenum, Chapel of Disease, Skeletonwitch, Bölzer and other worshippers of a blend of black, death and thrash metal.

For further details on Mouth Of Madness and their nine-tracker debut Event Horizon visit their bandcamp or order the album from the label here.