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Album Details

• Artist: Gloria Morti
• Album: Lateral Constraint
• Label: Metal Blade / Cyclone Empire
• Year of Release: 2013
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: solitaryman on 2013-02-14

Gloria Morti are a Finnish Blackened/Melo-Death metal band that has been through various line-up permutations over the course of their decade-plus existence. Lateral Constraint is their 4th full-length to date, and their first with Metal Blade records. Hard work and sacrifice have paid off for the band in the past in the form of sharing a stage with well-known acts such as Mayhem, Dissection and others.


Lateral Constraint is a thick, weighty dose of technically sharp and sharply written melodic death metal, pinned with undercurrents of black metal. Having never heard the band previously, I cannot compare their sound to earlier works, but from various reviews and comments it seems Gloria Morti have gotten increasingly aggressive from album to album. This certainly reflects the majority of Lateral Constraint. Lyrically, the album is drenched in anti-religious sensibilities, commanding humanity to abandon the failed ways of the past in order to ensure a viable future. This theme fits the nature of the music perfectly well. It should be mentioned that this record is very much a grower; the depth of the compositions is notably high and, taken as a whole, makes each successive listen a bit more enjoyable than the last as the listener dissects what's being offered. You'll note the excellent songwriting and melody within tracks like "The First Act", "Aesthetics of Self-Hyperbole" and "The Divine Is A Fraud", coupled with the more straightforward and blunt "Slaves", "Sleep, Kill, Regress, Follow" and my personal favorite, "Our God Is War".


Stacked with excellent guitarwork and suitable (if slightly typical) vocals and a competent rhythmn section, Lateral Constraint is worthy of high praise indeed. My only true complaint is how the album meshes together without many true highlights; it's much more of a consistently good effort rather than an occasionally brilliant one, but in terms of judging an entire LP, one cannot complain too much. For fans of extreme metal in general, black or death or otherwise, Gloria Morti has a big fat slab of the good stuff for you right here.

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