Morfin – Inoculation (F.D.A. Rekotz)

Friday, 24th January 2014
Rating: 6/10

Everything about Morfin’s Inoculation reeks of classic death metal.  From the band members’ long hair and leather jackets, the gory, horror-movie inspired artwork, to the music itself.  They even went ahead and covered Death’s “Leprosy” as the icing on the classic death metal cake!

Morfin takes their death metal with a heavy helping of the previously mentioned Death with some early Obituary on the side.  The production itself makes it seem as if Inoculation was truly dug up from a time capsule dated somewhere around 1990.  The guitar tone is suitably evil sounding with riffs that are fast-paced and aggressive.  Despite the speed, tracks like “Cryostasis” and the title track are at their best when they elicit some strong neck muscle-building riffs in the mid-paced range.

The problem is that with all of this classic death metal sound on display here, it almost sounds like plagiarism rather than influence.  The cover of “Leprosy” is so similar it begs the question of why bother covering it in the first place.  Other than the slightly better production, it’s pretty much dead-on.  One could cite the praises of this, being that we are talking about the venerable Death after all, but the other tracks cite the same manner of déjà vu.  It can often feel like a Death tribute of unreleased songs.

Tolerance for Inoculation will ultimately depend on your preference for Death and their early brethren.  If you understand what you are getting into and okay with it, there are plenty of solid riffs to be found.  But is it too much to ask to have a classic sounding death metal band add a little of their own pizzazz into their album?

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