RIGOR MORTIS — Rigor Mortis (review)

RIGOR MORTIS — Rigor Mortis album cover Album · 1988 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
Formed in 1983 in the Dallas TEXAS area, RIGOR MORTIS began when school chums Harden Harrison (drums), Casey Orr (bass) and Mike Scaccia (guitar) hit it off with mutual interests in two passions. Horror flicks and heavy metal music. After several years of gracing the greater Dallas-Ft Worth area venues, the band busted free from their rusty cage and unleashed their speed metal thrash madness unto the world with their eponymous debut release in 1988. This music reminds me a lot of the debut album of Possessed in that it’s just burgeoning with passionate angst fueled metal energy and the band are so on fire that they can hardly contain themselves. It also has that crossover feel of early thrash slowly evolving into the death metal of the 90s.

Right from the intro instrumental “Welcome To Your Funeral” the listener gets slapped in the face with a no compromise middle finger to the world attitude as the thrash guitar chords burst into a ridiculously fast and riff that evolve into ripping solos. Mike Scaccia has the speed of the fiercest neoclassical shredder but the music here stays rooted in punkish thrash metal music without all those fancy shmancy guitar scales, therefore it keeps the music ominous sounding with the i-am-a-metal-god vocal style of Bruce Corbitt who tears it up. The music on this one is dirty and raw with heavy distortion, ripping leads and enough energy to power Houston.

All the tracks take a shock and awe approach with tongue-in-cheek references to gore and horror flicks of yesteryear. This album is pretty unique for its approach in not trying to be a Metallica clone. While most bands were emulating the technical styles of the puppet masters, RIGOR MORTIS stayed in more of trad Motorhead style while ratcheting up the speed, riffage and most of all electrified soloing to new heights. While most of the album is non-compromising thrash metal at full speed, there are slowed down clean guitar intros as well as movie clip sampling but mostly it’s all about banging your head and banging it hard and heavy. Not the most mature album ever made but for a raw underground type of album for the 80s this one holds up pretty good over the decades.

The bonus track “Spivey” on later releases is pretty friggin’ hilarious as well :P
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