A while ago death metal band Exmortem proclaimed some drastic changes in direction on Funeral Phantoms and the Danes definitely weren’t exaggerating. The music has undergone a major overhaul and gone are a lot of the militant and fast signatures in the songs. The music is now a gloomy mix of Monotheist-type Celtic Frost and Blessed are the Sick-era Morbid Angel added some later day Immolation and Mayhem. All of course mixed with Exmortem’s own characteristics. It’s safe to say that all these different inputs make the music way more organic and vital than most of the bands other works.

Contrary to earlier Exmortem rely a lot on the slow and grinding in the music. It makes a big difference and the songs now sound both sludgy and eerie. The Danes don’t forget all about the fast in the songs. The band do blast regularly, but it’s like most of it now has it’s origination in black metal. It’s particularly noticeable on the titletrack and the closer “A View to a Death in the Morning”. Usually I dislike this, but like Crucifix, Exmortem is able to make it a strength rather than a weakness. The band has created music that has substance, vigour and drive. All these things make Funeral Phantoms an effort out of the ordinary.

The production is thick, dark and ugly, but flexible. None of the different facets seem to vanish. Exmortem anno 2008 is darker than at any point before and I have no doubt that their slow, grinding and eerie death metal will earn them a lot of praise. Funeral Phantoms is grime death metal at it’s best.