I’m quite picky when it comes to the black metal genre with bits and pieces of bands incorporating melodic, symphonic and atmospheric black. Seed Of Iblis who is a black metal band formed in 2011 from what I’ve been reading on the Metal Archives page are originally from Iraq but due to heavy controversies surrounding the band, their imagery and photos have been plagiarized from numerous sources but I can tell everyone that if you love that raw, lo-fi, blasphemous style of black metal then you’ll definitely love this album. Released through Pest Productions, this is the second full-length from the band and is the follow up to 2013’s Anti Quran Rituals which incorporated black metal structures with Ambient arrangements made the release beautifully well made and extremely written. This time around, Morbid Muhammad is the continuation in the band’s Islam themed songwriting while the band studied long and hard to create carnage, hellfire, and articulated pieces of music they’ve done to date.
The album starts with the introduction of ISIS=The Real Islam (Intro) which is the national anthem of the Middle Eastern countries which if you take it into context, it starts a suspended build up where the ambient, usage of programming and spoken words backing up the instrumentals really sets the tone to whole new level with endless amounts of blast beat drums managed to capture a darkened approach in their sound. Then other songs such as Gabriel the Angel of Fornication, The Massacres of Islam Conquests , Cunt Blood on Kaaba’s Walls and the closing track of Invoking Moulouk El Jinn (Outro) the members not only demonstrated themselves to unleash battlecries and aggressive compositions but to understand their philosophy and stance on the album’s lyrical content is not quite something I would expect out of a black metal band but for what it is, these musicians have created one hell of a extensive library of music showcasing maturity, natural progression and musicianship has never sounded tighter compared to past releases. Morbid Muhammad is best described as anti-religious black metal while borrowing Islamic metaphors that sounds completely different and unique.
From the compositions, musical talent, artistic expressions and observations to make misanthropic black metal music is a wonderful branch of excitement as every track the listener hears brings a historical event that reminded me a lot of the mid 2000’s style from Belphegor and Leviathan due to the rawness like production unlike these Iraqis has ever created in such due time they’ve been around in the extreme metal underground. I cannot fully express myself how wonderfully arranged these tracks are presented here provide powerful elements of some ritualistic Ambient arrangements but combining atmospheric passages gives the album a much more dynamic presence. Everything from the furious black metal melodies, epic musical paths of intelligent songwriting and soundscapes incredibly catchy to listen, Morbid Muhammad marked a new phase into the band’s rightful career as they’ve once again proved themselves that black metal is meant to be hateful, misanthropic and Seed Of Iblis proved their point that they’re not afraid to reveal what is loss, but rather keeping their traditional sound and lyrical ideologies is truly fascinating.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
