Band:	Morne
Album:	Engraved With Pain
Style:	Post-metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	November 2023

01. Engraved With Pain
02. Memories Like Stone
03. Wretched Empire
04. Fire And Dust

There are certain sounds that I am intrinsically a sucker for, to the extent that they could probably be as done to death as stoner rock or OSDM and I’d still lap up every album featuring them. Percussion-heavy sludge/post-metal is one of those sounds, so Morne pretty much had me hooked from the first minute of Engraved With Pain.

Morne aren’t a new name to me, but they’re not an overly familiar name either; I listened to To The Night Unknown in 2018 and distinctly remember liking it, but it didn’t make enough of an impression for me to not find myself confusing Morne and the similarly named post-metal band Hegemone with one another for a while (it probably didn’t help that Hegemone’s We Disappear got an identical number of votes to To The Night Unknown in 2018’s post-metal awards). Well, after Hegemone released Voyance last year, Morne have come along with their own follow-up album, and after hearing Engraved With Pain, I’m not going to find myself confusing them with anyone again in a hurry.

Looking back at To The Night Unknown, while it’s not blown me away on a revisit, the album is noteworthy for its range; its sludgy post- core could extend to more extreme or classically melodic sounds. Nevertheless, the opening title track to Engraved With Pain still represents a new approach from the band, in more ways than one. The beginning of the song is basically ambient noise, an intermittent static fuzz that gradually transforms into something more rhythmic. That percussion focus I mentioned in the intro? That does play a part, but while Morne do eventually go all in on the emphatic tribal tom patterns, the initial percussion sounds are more in the form of processional clinks; combined with the flickering static, it’s an ominous intro that turns arguably even more ominous when the toms and guitars kick in. “Engraved With Pain” is doomy, bleak and portentous, ever so gradually dialling up the intensity, in a way that fans of Neurosis or Process Of Guilt are likely to appreciate.

It's a fantastic way to start the album, and one that immediately hooks me in, but while I could probably live quite happily with a full 40-minute album in a similar vein, Morne’s flexibility reaffirms itself as Engraved With Pain progresses. “Memories Of Stone” immediately changes tack, offering up something that is in some ways lighter, with almost post-punkish guitar textures, but also more forceful due to the pounding drumbeats. The latter minutes of this song also shake things up further, as Morne go in a doomier, more melancholic direction, with sad guitar motifs permeating through alongside a sorrowful solo.

As Engraved With Pain continues, you start to pick up on recurring features. “Wretched Empire” reprises some of that emphatic drumming from the opening track, although the overall feel of this song is more chugging and groovy, despite the hellish tone of the yelled vocals. Similarly, “Fire And Dust” replicates “Memories Of Stone” in taking a doomier approach with some sad lead guitar melodies, although the overall sludgier feel of this closing song distinguishes it from the earlier track. By bringing back elements in the last two songs that appeared in the first two, Morne do a good job of giving this album a good level of internal consistency.

On the whole, I think this new release from Morne starts off with its strongest material; the title track is such a beast of tension and atmosphere that it sets a high bar for the following songs to meet, and none of them quite make the same impact. However, they don’t really fall far below it in terms of quality either; Engraved With Pain is a solid album throughout, and in my eyes, potentially an improvement on To The Night Unknown.