REVIEW: Morke - To Carry On

The nine-song release To Carry On is MORKE’s most ambitious release to date, as WING’s style continues to shift from atmospheric black metal to more melodic, medieval-inspired sound, or as the artist himself likes to call it, “Castle Metal”. Featuring intricate soundscapes that are primarily composed of distorted guitars, fast-speed snare and raw screams, the songs do not necessarily blend into each other, yet the flow of the melody makes it feel like they do. 

Being centred around historical context, the first few songs - Sublymed Respair, Falling Leaves and Ashes of Feudalism do sound urgent and aggressive with the use of instruments. The intricate riffs, as well as solos and bridges do add more depth into the melody, that is simple, yet with the right use of each instrument creates a soundscape, that takes over ears instantly.

Myne Owne Hertis Rote, Coup D’oeil and Viola Odorata continue with the same narrative as the previous songs, which does add a feeling of repetition, especially when the melody sounds almost identical in each of the songs. While the riffs are changing around and the pace slightly differs as well, it does not help the songs in many ways to stand out from the rest. 

The last three songs, Crystalline Firmament, Wysterian Arbor and To Carry On are the same situation, with the first mentioned having a little change in terms of different beginning. CJ YACOUB does help WING tremendously to give a little more pizzazz to the doomy melody, but overall the melody does not bring anything innovative. To Carry On, the title track, that is also the closing song of the album, does sound victorious, and can be seen as a song of a hero, who won a life-changing battle, but that is up to everyone’s interpretation.

MORKE’s latest album To Carry On diversed from his typical sound a little more than his previous works, and explores the sounds of guitar in bigger detail, but does not bring anything new to the scene. All the tracks sound very similarly, with the opening and closing tracks even having similar riffs, and after a while, the listen-through might become less exciting.

Score: 4/10

To Carry On was released on 10th October via

Words: Katerina Stepanikova

Photos: Morke