lukretion All Flesh Is Grass is Madder Mortem’s extraordinary sophomore record, released in 2001 via Century Media. The Norwegians’ 1999 debut album Mercury had attracted lots of praise at the time it came out, and yet the band disintegrated shortly afterwards, leaving siblings Agnete (vocals) and BP Kirkevaag (guitars) alone to reconstruct the band from scratch. Enter Mads Solås (drums), Pål Mozart Bjørke (bass, keyboards) and Eirik Ulvo Langnes (guitars), and in 2000 the semi-revolutionised line-up locked themselves up in Studio Underground, Västerås, Sweden, to record the follow-up to Mercury. If the debut album had already shown the Norwegian band’s subversive, unconventional streak as they stretched the rules of doom metal beyond its boundaries, All Flesh Is Grass simply blows everything out of the water.

This album occupies a special place in my collection. I cherish it and genuinely admire it as one of the most innovative, uncompromising, boundary-stretching examples of heavy metal. And yet I know that sitting through it is going to make for a raw, uncomfortable listening experience. This is because All Flesh Is Grass is a VERY demanding listen. Madder Mortem take the rulebook of extreme metal, scrap it, and then put the pieces back together in a random, chaotic order. Doom, gothic metal, nu-metal, prog metal, alternative and atmospheric rock are all mixed together to create a novel musical Frankenstein that shouldn’t possibly work – and yet, in its own deranged way, it does.

This across-the-board, uncompromising approach reminds me of Solefald, albeit the latter use a rather different and more extreme sonic palette to channel their disturbed ideas into musical form. All Flesh Is Grass does not take it easy either, as far as extreme music goes. Ultra-heavy, razor-sharp guitars trace schizophrenic riffs that refuse to settle on any given pattern and instead keep mutating and morphing into something new. The drums follow a similar approach, in constant flux, mixing minimalist beats with furious, cacophonous explosions of noise. Meanwhile, Agnete’s vocals oscillate between the sweet and the gruesome. One moment she uses her mellifluous soprano-range to sing gentle melodies, and the next she is bellowing her deep, low howls to the moon. Growls and shouted vocals are used too in the most jarring passages.

All Flesh is Grass deals blows with one hand and soothing caresses with the other. The bleak, disjointed guitar riffs of “Breaker of Worlds” make for a disturbing start of the album. The angular dissonances continue through the splendid “The Cluster Children” and “Ruby Red”, and it is only with the short instrumental “Head on Pillow” and the gothic “Turn the War On” that we are given a fleeting moment of respite, as the atmosphere mellows and chilling melodies lull us for a brief moment, before the song explodes again in a wall of noise. These rare concessions to melody are like water in the desert and resonate the more for this reason. The album concludes with another masterpiece in atmosphere and dynamics, the sprawling “Traitor’s Mark”, a doomy affair that explores a vast musical universe made of noise, moody ambience and sickly melodies.

Like a car crash – painful to watch, and yet you can’t look away –, All Flesh Is Grass hypnotizes and repels at the same time. It is angular, dissonant and loud. But it is also moody, melancholic and subtly melodic. It takes the listener on a musical journey that is hard to go through unscathed or to forget. While certainly not for the feeble of heart, the sheer boldness of the music that can be heard on this album makes Madder Mortem a very special and unique band in the extreme metal scene, and one that I can only highly recommend.

UMUR "All Flesh is Grass" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Norwegian female led goth/doom/progressive metal act Madder Mortem. The album was released through Century Media Records in February 2001. I found a great deal of enjoyment in the band´s debut album "Mercury (1999)". It´s a doomy/goth metal album with a really pleasant and warm sound. A bit different from the usual Nightwish and Evanescence clones which mare that part of the heavy metal spectrum. There have been great changes to the lineup since the release of the debut album and only vocalist Agnete M. Kirkevaag and guitarist/vocalist/percussionist BP M. Kirkevaag are left from the original lineup. In addition to three new members their record company Misanthropy Records closed down and the band had to find a new record company for this release. But boy did they come out stronger and more determined.

I don´t know what´s gotten into the band since the debut but "All Flesh is Grass" is a much more aggressive and focused album than it´ss predecessor and even touches extreme metal territory a few times. Agnete M. Kirkevaag´s strong voice and intriguing vocal lines are still the main focus in the music but the guitar riffs and the rythm section are also strong and varied throughout the album. The music is melodic but not in the sense that the choruses are simple sing along choruses. Agnete M. Kirkevaag has a way of making her vocal lines dark and interesting which gives the music an great atmosphere. Track titles like "Breaker of Words", "To Kill and Kill Again" and "Turn the War On" speaks of the equally dark nature of the music and when the lyrics are delieved in such a venomous fashion it´s all I need to be convinced that this band mean business. This is not the most progressive album I´ve heard but songs like "Turn the War on" and the ending almost 10 minute long "Traitor's Mark" (don´t be fooled by the longer playing time displaying in your CD player. There´s unfortunately a silence ending) does feature progressive elements. Most tracks actually do on some level.

The musicianship is excellent. The new members of the band have greatly improved the instrumental part of the music. I have to give a special mention to the rythm section of bassist/keyboardist/backing vocalist (extreme vocals) Paul Mozart Björk and drummer Mads Solas who are in large part responsible for bringing the music to a higher level.

The production is excellent. Powerful and detailed.

"All Flesh is Grass" has taken me by storm. I wasn´t expecting to hear such a powerful and intriguing album from Madder Mortem. This is a deserved 4 star (80%) rating in my book and a very recommendable album if you prefer your female led metal a bit heavier, darker and intriguing than usual. Don´t expect to be blown away by complex playing on the album though. Dark atmosphere is the main attraction here. I have to make a note here that even though I mentioned extreme vocals before they are very, very sparse and people not interested in that kind of vocals should not be turned off by the very few times (and I mean very few times) they appear. While the extreme vocals may be sparse Madder Mortem still have more in common both musically and lyrically with the more extreme part of the metal scene than they have with progressive metal bands like Dream Theater or Fates Warning.