THE BEAST

Exhorder – Mourn The Southern Skies - Album Review by DJ ZODIAC 
 
From that very first note on guitar ringing out for a couple of seconds you can just sense this album is going to kick your ass. The upbeat tempo of the opening track, My Time, starts and the sick, almost power metal like vocals come in, and sets the pace for an album which is going to blow you away with pure thrash metal fury.  

Asunder (track 2) starts off slower, but no less heavy. Guitars still kick your arse and the drumming is superb as well.  Hallowed Sound starts off similar to Asunder in tempo and has a nice melodic chorus.

Beware The Wolf picks up the pace again, clocking in at around 4 minutes, is similar in speed/tempo to My Time. Heavy, powerful vocals on the chorus of this song. Ripping guitar solo as is to be expected on a killer Heavy Metal album from a kick ass band that has been at this a long time.

Yesterday’s Bones Is the 2nd longest track on the album at over 7 minutes long. A slightly slower yet still thrashy song, this one is no less epic than anything else on the album. A lighter melodic keyboard sounding finish to this song just to lighten the mood before the next song brings back that crushing, heavy, groove laden guitars with All She Wrote which really picks up the pace again in style.

( Taken from the band’s Wikipedia page ) They are considered progenitors of the grooveoriented thrash sound later made famous by bands such as Pantera, Lamb of God, White Zombie, and Machine Head. Their debut album Slaughter in the Vatican (1990) has been regarded as a large influence on the New Orleans metal scene. Initially active from 1985 to 1994, reformed from 2008 to 2011, they have since reformed in 2017.  Since Reforming in 2017 after two long hiatuses, Mourn the Southern Skies is the bands first full length album in 2019 and only the third album of their career, a lengthy 27 between releases, however this album more than makes up for the wait. Exhorder are back with a vengeance and prove it with an album which is totally in your face from beginning to end.  Rumination is a standard track, not bad by any means, and definitely worthy of its place on this album. The Arms of Man is another somewhat slower track, clocking in at 6 minutes, very ominous, doom inspired lyrics.  Ripping Flesh, really tears into the subject metal with pure thrash metal fury, very fast paced, and the shortest track on the album at around 3 minutes, but no less, in fact a lot more brutal, than any other tracks on the album. It might be short, but it is 3 minutes and 8 seconds of speed metal madness. This gives way to the final and longest track on the album, at almost 10 minutes long, is the title track. Slow, melodic acoustic sounding guitar, intros the song which gives way to powerful, yet melodic vocals. Leading into a heavier sound, and power metal vocals, this song is almost the perfect way to end an album which was a long time in the making. Overall, I rate this a solid 8.5 out of 10 stars. This band has never lost their epic sound over the years.  Mourn the Southern Skies is the third studio album by American thrash metal band Exhorder, set to be released on September 20, 2019, through Nuclear Blast Records. It is the band's first studio release in 27 years, after their 1992 album The Law.