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Scrolls Of The Megilloth

Digipack | Rerelease 2004 | Original Release

#	Title	Length
1	Nocturnal	6:08
2	Terminate Damnation	6:17
3	Eternal Lamentation	6:27
4	Raise The Chalice	4:47
5	Lymphosarcoma	6:01
6	Scrolls Of The Megilloth	4:26
7	Death Requiem	5:09
8	Necromanicide	4:54
9	Inflamed	3:25
10	Ancient Prophecy	11:42
Total Time: 59:16

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Between word of mouth and covers of their older material on "Hammer of God," I was curious about this release and was totally blown away. To call this heavy is an understatement. This album is sheer brutality from start to finish. The vocals are among the best that I have ever heard in death metal. Intelligent use of sound effects and equally awesome backing vocals add dimension to almost every song. The bell and preacher in "Death Requiem," the organ intro to the title track, the hellish jeering of demons to the decieved in "Necromanicide," the flames and screaming at the end of "Eternal Lementation" - all bring the album together and give it character. And I at first thought those flames were drums! They weren't, but that speaks a lot for Jayson Sherlock's drumming which is amazing throughout the entire album. No drummer that they have had since can equal him. Lots of double bass, speed, and just going all over the place. The bass is thunderous, the guitars are deep and fast. Nobody takes a break to do anything fancy here, this is just fast and brutal metal all the way through. In fact, the only thing this album is missing is good solos. But that is only a minor complaint since the rest of the album is so darn good. "Scrolls Of The Meggiloth" is a must-have for any fan of Mortification or anyone who likes metal in general.

Who listens to one of the latest records of the Australian Thrash Metal band MORTIFICATION at the record dealer of one’s trust, will let them disappear in the shelves after a few minutes and will erase the name of the band out of his mind. Ok, the albums “Hammer Of God“ (1999) and “The Silver Cord Is Severed“ (2001) have 1-2 good songs, but the Metal world may even do it without. However, the trio around Steve Rowe belonged to the elite of the (White-)Death Metal 14 years ago and they released the classic album “Scrolls Of The Megilloth” over the German label Nuclear Blast in the year 1992.

With the culty "impressions from the wood" intro, which changes to a smooth and melodic riff with doublebass, the one hour masterpiece is legendarily opened, before it really opens with a truly explosion of force and power. The fast, partially progressive-played “Nocturnal” is a first-class opener and one of the best songs Steve Rowe ever wrote. Within the fastest numbers on “Scrolls Of The Megilloth“ have their origin at the feather of the drummer Jayson Sherlock, who is also responsible for the epic 12 minute-track „ Ancient Prophesy“. Though Steve carries the whole responsibility for the black sheep of that album – the boring “Raise The Chalice“. But this is the whole mistake at this record, songs like “Terminate Damnation“ (fast doublebass killer with a “head-off-riff”), “Eternal Lamentation“ (fast doublebass killer with progressive parts) and “Necromanicide“ (a fast and straight doublebass banger with melodic rhythm) are above every doubt and they will fill every fan of Death Metal with enthusiasm.

Steve, Jayson and guitarist Michael Carlisle quoted very often the bible at their lyrics, especially out of the Books of Megilloth and the Ancient Testament – which Steve even studied a year before the recordings. I am no Christian, I don’t believe in god and that’s the reason why the meanings of the lyrics don’t mean anything to me. For me, the great music is important, which has been recorded in Australia at the beginning of the 90s. You may doubt, if Steve’s “Grind Baritone of extreme reality“ is extremely realistic or not, because here he sounded like he never did again.

Nobody urges you to like the MORTIFICATION of nowadays or to visit one of their gigs, but purchase this CD, if you like (melodic) Death Metal, because this are hymns for all eternity and a piece of Australian Metal history.

(www.metal-observer.com)

Often hailed as one of the best death metal releases of all time, "Scrolls..." certainly comes close. Steve's vocals are much deeper and harsher than on the self-titled release and the music can only be described as epic death metal. The songs on this album are much longer than what you'd expect from a death metal band, many clocking in at over six minutes. Album closer "Ancient Prophecy" being the longest at 11:42. While most death metal albums from the early '90s sound dated by today's standards, "Scrolls..." still holds up due to excellent songwriting and arrangement. Definitely an extreme metal classic.

I am not a fan of death or grindcore metal, but I am familiar to first 3 Mortification albums. I agree, that "Scrols of the Megilloth" is their best album. I would say, this album describes what Mortification is about and what is their specific sound. Yes, intro of this album original and well incorporated in to the first song.
Some time ago, I was looking for christian death metal and found Mortification and this album. At that time we where not familiar to english language. My friends thought, that christianity is not worthy of attention and so christian metal does, but when they heared sound of Mortification, they asked me: "who told you that they are christians? They don`t sound like that." Yes, they sound very "angry". ;-)

In many peoples opinion this album is the best they've ever made. It's fast, extreme and brutal death metal. Jayson Sherlock proves himself playing really fast drums. And Steve Rowe still has his brutal Death metal grunt, like in the beginning of Terminate Damnation. This album meant something for the christian metalscene, bands were inspired by this album, and some people said it was the most brutal album those days. So it had impact. The lyrics are good, Scrolls of the Megilloth is filled with Bible teachings.
Review by JesusMetal (www.JesusMetal.com)

"Scrolls Of The Megilloth" is the favourite album of a lot which actually is pretty good understandable. This album already shows up only highlights and its the onliest Mortification Album with pure Death Metal. Additional this album is recorded by the original line-up which includes Jayson Sherlock on the drums, Michael Carlisle on the guitar and of course Steve Rowe on bass and voice.

Scrolls Of The Megilloth starts with the song Nocturnal which provides a nice album intro with the sounds of some australian jungle animals. Followed to these animal sounds are the drums and later a nice guitar riff. The chorus of this song is rather deep and has already some hints of grind in it but therefore the verses are faster.
The next masterpiece is Terminate Damnation. Starting with a short intro, followed by a part without instruments. This song provides a lot of instrumentally brutallity.
Song three is Eternal Lamentation which is somehow special concerning the instrumental parts. Throughout the whole song are several changes of the beat but anyway it doesn't sound hacky or anything like this but fits the music perfectly.
Raise The Chalice is again a nice Death Metal song with nice growling stuff of Steve Rowe.
The next song is dedicated to the brother of Steve Rowe whose name is Angus Rowe. Angus Rowe had been attained by Lymphosarcoma (cancer of the lymphatic system) and leukemia (cancer of the blood). His healing was nothing more than a wonder similar to the leukemia of Steve Rowe a few years later. Because of the theme of this song there are several hospital sounds integrated in it.
The titeltrack Scrolls Of The Megilloth is the 6th song on this disc. I really like the intro of this song a lot which begins with some bells followed by an organ which creates a very great athmospheric sound. After about one minute all the suspense which got build up in the first minute got blast away by the starting of the intruments. This song is definitively an entitled titeltrack with again some nice Death Metal singing.
Death Requiem provides a pretty long intro followed by some kind of grind singing. Some of the lyric passages seems to be read out and unfortunately aren't written down in the lyrics.
Necromanicide is another song with an amazing song intro. Starting with the silent roar of the wind which suddenly gets uninterrupted with the clanking of a glass plate and continued by some brute instrumental riffs. To mention specially on this song are the rimes of this song which is written by Jayson Sherlock. The intention of this song is to warn people before occult things. The warped voices shall give an image of speaking with evil spirits.
The second last song is Inflamed which is another great Death Metal song.
As big end there is the song Ancient Prophecy which is a 11:42 minutes long song. The song is rather slow and reminds partly at some Doom Metal stuff. There is an increase of the speed in this song which starts slow, getting a bit faster then and getting slow again at the end of this song. So this song is a great outro for this whole album.

All in all this album is a real Death Metal masterpiece and a must for every human who is connected to Metal somehow. If you want to get an impression of Mortification and still dont know anything of them I think this album is also a nice choice.

Full on death metal at its finest, with a few touches of doom. This album is considered their best by many fans(myself included). The growls of Steve Rowe is utterly powerful, and he is backed up very often by haunting shrieks in the back-ground. The music is faster than ever, and very very brutal, and the drumming of Jayson Sherlock is phenominal. The songs are longer than before, but that certainly does not make them boring at all! Lyrically, many songs deal with spiritual darkness, temptation and hell.