Mortar Final Victim LP
With a moniker like MORTAR and a cover depicting two crows ravaging a dove, the listener is left with little doubt about this band’s intent: hammering the point home through heavy hardcore punk music. I have to admit I had not paid much attention to MORTAR before although Final Victim is already their second record, so I was curious to hear what they were on about. The band originally started as a one-man project by Jarek, a Polish punk living in London, formerly in MEINHOF and cult band GUERNICA Y LUNO. An instantly striking element of the LP is how downtuned and metallic it sounds, not unlike SKITSYSTEM or WOLFBRIGADE maybe, which confers a rather ominous vibe. It is a well-produced work highlighting the music’s heaviness and its old school groove. Contrary to the Swedish crust hardcore school which MORTAR certainly looks up to, the music is not all about the D-beat pace, as some songs use the classic binary death metal beat, and the distinctly English vocals are shouted in a punk way rather than growled in a metal one, which keeps it spiky. I think that it works well on the whole, it is a focused effort and you can tell they thought it over. I did enjoy listening to the album, but still think it misses that little extra something to make it really compelling.