morgul blade

Philly trad-influenced quartet embraces the power… of evil

When I was a little kid and playing cops and robbers, I always wanted to be the bad guy. Everybody has a side where they secretly enjoy evil, and especially romanticized evil—Sauron, Morgoth, the arch evil—and it’s a bit criminally underused in modern [traditional] heavy metal.” ¶ Turns out vocalist, guitarist, synth player and primary songwriter Klauf, of Philadelphia blackened traditional metal outfit Morgul Blade, had a crystal-clear vision for his band’s debut album, Fell Sorcery Abounds. “True metal, not that it’s a slight against it, but it leans too much on the bright and shiny and the heroic, rather than the core part of being straight evil,” he explains. “One of my favorite albums of all time is Slayer’s Show No Mercy—I like to take cues from just how wicked and evil that album is, and try to give you the same feeling as if you would be listening to Eternal Champion or Omen or Manilla Road in that it’s mystical and mythic, but at the same time, way more sinister.” ¶ In practice, Morgul Blade evoke similarly divergent acts like Malokarpatan, Hexenbrett, Varathron and epic era Bathory—

think 1996’s Blood on Ice. Their music is delivered with a confidence and proficiency rarely heard on a debut, more than delivering on the promise of their 2019 EP Harbingers of Power and the World’s End.

“When you’re playing music that a lot of people could consider ‘corny,’ hubris and arrogance is necessary,” Klauf reasons. “If you don’t buy in, how do you expect your listener to buy in? As far as my lyrics go, I think the worldbuilding is really important because when anyone listens to the album, I want you to close your eyes and feel like you’re in a field and there’s stuff swirling around you and swords and arrows and whatever else, and I think rudimentary song structures and keeping it simple lends to that.”

Fell Sorcery Abounds hardly sounds simple in practice—instead, it’s anthemic and driving, with acoustic interludes, ample synth integration and two vocalists with at least three vocal styles between them. Of course, given the name, Lord of the Rings references appear frequently (after all, morgul blades turn their victims into Ringwraiths), as do references to folklore and history. Add some original world-building, a healthy dose of ’80s video game and cultural nostalgia, and you’ve got an album that feels conceptual and features zero weak tracks. Its intense focus was hard-earned.

“This album wouldn’t exist if I didn’t lock myself in a house for a year. I’d probably still be writing it, honestly,” offers Klaus. “I got laid off, obviously, because everything shut down. So, I went from working 70 hours a week to zero hours a week, so I was like, ‘Well, I gotta do something; otherwise I’m going to completely go out of my fucking