Anoxide is a death metal act from the UK. On August 9th, 2024, Anoxide released their debut album, “Morals & Dogma,” which was released through Ghastly Music and promoted through The Metallist PR.
Anoxide, Mortals & Dogma: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins of Mortals & Dogma
Let’s start by discussing the first three sins of Anoxide and their album, Mortals & Dogma.
The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Features a musical prowess, a complex onslaught of aggression that combines intricate guitar riffs, driving the music forward. The mix of breakdowns, various tones/tempos, technical riffs/djent passages, and solo work is a testament to the band’s exceptional skills and will surely intrigue the listener. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Involves guttural and snarling vocals with a hint of black metal shrieks. The Third Sin—The Percussions: Delves into the vast world of aggression, a barrage of pounding drums, and tempos and beats that shake and drive the music’s foundation..
The Fourth Sin: Overall Discussion: Challenges the listener to engage with profound themes of societal decay, misinformation, and human folly.
As the listener embarks on the album, they are immediately drawn into the progressive instrumental and guttural vocal introduction of the opening piece, Simulacrum. This sets the stage for an immersive journey to captivate and keep the audience engaged.
Each of the remaining seven pieces, including the opening and second pieces, Indoctrinated, challenges the listener to engage with profound themes of societal decay, misinformation, and human folly. This intellectual stimulation is vital to the album’s appeal, ensuring the audience feels intellectually engaged and stimulated.
“Simulacrum: Explores identity construction in a media-saturated world, misinformation’s influence, and the effect of marketing and divisive media. Tear Down Their Citadels: About the inescapable cycles of systemic corruption within society. Age of Austerity: A grim portrayal of socio-economic disparity and the devastating effects of neoliberal policies on the working class and marginalised communities. The Ceaseless March: Describes a dystopian future where humanity is reduced to a nomadic existence, scavenging for survival under oppressive control, inequality, and resistance to subjugation. An Old Foe Emerges: Depicts the resurgence of far-right ideologies and the cyclical nature of human conflict. These Walls Shall Crumble: Reflects on the inevitable decline of empires due to resource exploitation and societal neglect. To Starve in Decadence: A lamentation on humanity’s inherent brutality and the perpetual cycle of suffering and inequality.”
This London band, Anoxide, unleashes this brutal -yet complex death metal with complex song structures and thought-provoking lyrics upon the listener’s ears and soul. Moral and Dogma is a fifty-minute, relentless onslaught of aggression. Combining intricate guitar riffs that drive the music, pounding drums that shake the foundation of the music and guttural and snarling vocals that tear through the music and lyrics like something escaping from the pits of hell.
The production of Morals and Dogma is a testament to Anoxide‘s unwavering dedication to delivering high-quality music. The impeccable sound engineering ensures that every musical element is distinctly audible, from the subtlest tones to the powerful beats, intricate riffs, and resonating cymbals. This pristine audio quality enriches the listener’s experience, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the album’s artistry and musical intricacies.
As Moral and Dogma processes my ears and soul, which is a good thing—right? Anoxide plays extreme metal that’s hard to pinpoint—brutal death? Progressive/technical death? At the same time, Morals and Dogma plays like some Clive Barker novel, while the pages provide the listener with this barrage of brutal and progressive/technical death metal, all combined into one; each song tells a story that merges into one book/play-through.
But Gojira, Opeth, and Meshuggah fans will feel at home with Anoxide and their Moral and Dogma. Drawing inspiration from these influential bands, Anoxide has crafted a unique sound that pays homage to the extreme metal genre while pushing its boundaries.
The album ends with the ten-minute closing piece, To Starve in Decadence. This closing piece features all brutal -yet complex death metal with complex song structures, instrumentation and devilmanship from the first eight pieces. It adds occasional clean, haunting passages to create a dynamic and immersive sound at the right moment. The song and album close with a short acoustic outro.
We want to thank The Metallist PR for letting us review Anoxide and their Morals & Dogma album. We will wrap it up by discussing the final three sins and concluding the review.
You’re Listening to “The Ceaseless March”
PlayThe Last Three Sins
Let’s discuss the last three sins of Anoxide and their album, Mortals & Dogma.
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia:
For us, Anoxide and their album Morals and Dogma are a loud, brutal, progressive, complex, and heavy forbidden fruit of art. This release and the band’s music will tempt you with their intense and complex flavours, banging your head and pulsing your blood from the moment you press the play button.
Prepare to be captivated by the captivating and diverse musical, instrumental, and vocal arrangements in Morals and Dogma. Each song offers a unique experience with its tempo, tone, and instrumental and vocal devilmanship shifts.
Track four, Age of Austerity, is a personal song to us. But we can all relate to the whole lyrical theme.
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork:
Depending on the listener, the artwork strongly speaks about the lyrics within the music because we are both from a working-class area/families. It’s the full-body mirror that (also known as doorways to the unknown) seems to foretell the lyrics and foreshadow humanity’s demise. In the background, we have an apocalyptic/dystopian atmosphere, the lady looking into the mirror; this feels/related to us, “looking in a mirror, you can’t see yourself — aka the working class never gets a look in or a say.”
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish:
Nothing to disrelish within the musical spectrum of Anoxide, and their album Mortals & Dogma.
This concludes the Anoxida, Mortals & Dogma review.
Track-listing:
- Simulacrum
- Indoctrinated
- Tear Down Their Citadels
- Age of Austerity
- The Ceaseless March
- An Old Foe Emerges
- Theses Walls Shall Crumble
- The Weighing of the Scales
- To Starve in Decadence
Anoxida Is:
- Michael Heraghty – drums
- Alex Houlder – rhythm guitars
- Jack Taylor – bass
- Chris Butterworth – vocals
Band/Artist Links:
