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I see this getting a lot of love on year-end lists, and while I like it, I don’t think it is the bee’s knees like some people seem to. This is a band from Philadelphia who combine a down-and-dirty Trad Metal style with raspy, blackened vocals to make a sound that reminds me of bands like Lightning Swords of Death, Athor, or Kryptos. The thing is, this kind of band normally balances not having melodic vocal lines by pouring on the riffs, and I don’t think Morgul Blade really have the riffs for it. All these songs are pretty good, but none of them go beyond that. When they get a good lick, like on "A Last Waltz of Gevaudan" or "In the Grip of the Dark Lord", they really just tend to ride it into the ground. The songwriting here is pretty flat, with only one real riff per song, and they aren’t all gold.

This is definitely a good debut, and I would keep an eye out for more from this band, as they really show promise, but I feel like they either need to go with melodic singing (which crops up here and there and sounds a lot better than the rasps), or they need to crank up the riff machine and give their songs a lot more energy.