DAEDRIC – Mortal
Release Date: 25th August 2023
Label: FiXT
Bandcamp
Genre: Industrial Metal, Electro Metal, Metalcore.
FFO: Future Palace, Fight the Fade, Spiritbox, Andromida, Void Chapter.
Review By: Mark Waight
Mortal has got to be one of the most eagerly awaited debut albums in any metal genre ever. Daedric has already amassed a huge following worldwide with her captivating blend of Alternative Industrial Metal by getting plenty of airplay on every conceivable platform you can shake a stick at with a string of fabulous hit singles.
“Wretched” and “Dawnbreaker” between them gained +70K views on YouTube, whilst “Alchemy” and “Coldharbour” have helped pick up listeners via other modern media platforms as well as good old-fashioned radio to give Daedric (AKA Kristyn Hope) over 100K followers internationally which makes her an incredible Modern Metal Phenomenon.
With all this hype, I was really keen to see if Mortal lived up to my high expectations, and I’m more than happy to report back that it most certainly does, so read on.
Proceedings get on the way with title track Mortal where we are treated to an array of thunderous riffs, pulsating drums and a heady cocktail of brutal and clean vocals. This is on-point, modern metal at its very best!
Daedric delivers a stunning vocal performance throughout Mortal, but on Titan it plays out beautifully over the electro infused backdrop. It’s a cracking megabyte of a song that builds the anticipation of what is to come.
Wretched is brimming with a whole host of Industrial electronic sounds that just about fill every corner of the room with glorious music. This is head-stomper of a track is super slick ear candy that has you instantly reaching for the repeat button. A much heavier bass introduces us to Alchemy, which is a hard hitting and brutal song that punches a fierce path to your brain before it finally closes out with a softer moment of serenely vocal bliss.
Nascent is a lovely and dreamy track, with Daedric giving us a glimpse deep into the pure emotion of her music. Rich, enthralling and totally captivating, it doesn’t get better than this! The pace picks up with the anthemic groove of Nirn; the vocals are beautifully haunting, and worm their way into your mind by way of high-tempo soundtrack. A few moments of brutality heighten your appreciation of the sumptuous sound waves you have just witnessed.
Sepulchre combines all the elements of Daedrics musical arsenal perfectly into one tune. Brutal, clean, electro, industrial metal all in one place, what’s not to like?
Dawnbreaker is an absolute treat vocally and a joy to behold. Mortal is an album that just keeps giving by continuously tantalising your musical taste buds with fresh and exciting new sounds. Only has a bit more of a traditional feel to it, the soundtrack maybe industrial but the vocals are proper Hard Rock in style with a real gritty rasp to them. Nice!
Sadly, all good things must come to an end and Mortal by Daedric does it brilliantly with a banger of a song, Coldharbour. This song encompasses everything that is current in the ever-changing world of Metal and will stand up in the future as this moment in musical history perfectly frozen in time.
To coin a phrase, “all killer no filler” has never been more apt, with every single track on Mortal by Daedric standing up under scrutiny as a fantastic individual piece of music. Hopefully it will be available as a physical copy too as well as digitally in the future as I am sure the demand will be extremely high. Mortal has been a fabulous musical journey that I would recommend you all to take as soon as the opportunity arises.
(4.5 / 5)
