When death metal and Sweden appear in the same sentence, I'm almost bound to the mindset that it can't be anything else than something related to Entombed or the likes, but Morbus Chron destroys that paradigm right in the beginning with its debut album's cover art that flashes with a thousand of colours. Musically, we might be a tad closer to the phenomenom of Swedish underground revival than the deviant artwork suggest, but Morbus Chron has its own personal traits as well.
These differing features aren't anything crucially exceptional however, because Sleepers in the Rift is still, at its very core, old school Swedish death metal. Sound-wise, the band does incorporate a more spacey guitar sound as well as a more breathing production overall: there's none of that asphyxiating, muddy atmosphere present on the album that dominates almost every other product in the field. Instead of a stifling graveyard production, Morbus Chron concentrates on lively riffs that range from simple, traditional firings to rather melodic affairs. There's nothing wistful about the melodies though, they're all menacing tunes, aptly placed into the raucous music. The vocalist deserves a mention too as he delivers quite a wide spectrum of fittingly unhinged snarls.
All in all, what one should expect of Sleepers in the Rift is a concise package of Swedish death metal crafted of familiar elements but spiced with a couple of atypical ideas. I might prefer the more charasteristic Swedish sound that reeks of rotten corpses, but I also do think that Morbus Chron has done quite a good job here at creating captivating death metal not full of clichés. Worth of checking out, most certainly.
3 / 5
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