HEXX - Morbid Reality CD

And here we are facing the “morbid reality”, the album reviewed here. Since not a Hexx’s effort had sounded the same as the previous one at that stage, I wasn’t sure whether the band had preserved the technical style from “Quest…” on this one. The opening title-track starts with a pompous orchestral intro which doesn’t tell much, but before you know it a whirlwind of brutal chaotic riffs begins, an overwhelming amalgam of thrash and death that sees the guys paying attention to what was going around the scene recently; this is a technical hyper-active concoction siding with the works of Hellwitch’s “Syzygial Miscreancy”, Vacant Grave’s “Life & Death”, Nocturnus’ “The Key”, and Atheist’s “Piece of Time”, all released a year earlier. Said title-track is a stylish dishevelled melee of fast overlapping riffs in the best tradition of Hellwitch, the more sensible leads trying to find their way through this mazey chaotic “salad” which suddenly disappears at the end to give way to a grand doomy closure. The vocals have become way more brutal losing whatever vestiges of actual singing they had previously, but match the intense delivery which is propelled forward by “The Last Step”, another violent technicaller which marginally more linear, less exuberant rhythm-section also recalls Incubus’ “Beyond the Unknown”. Things get serious from here, though, with “Birds of Prey”, a marvellous progressive opus which starts with virtuous gallops the band “winking” back at their thrashy roots before a not very decipherable labyrinth of shifting amorphous riffs inaugurates, bringing the complexity beyond “Unquestionable Presence” even; some immaculate technical thrashing appears as well in the second half, and combined with the dazzling leads makes up for one of the highlights on the whole US 90’s scene, not without the help of the gallops that return towards the end to wrap on this most eventful saga.