In 2021, I discovered an Indian project called Moral Collapse. They released their debut self-titled full-length and it discomforted me. The tracks were grating, new levels of unorthodox heaviness all held together by the cohesive glue of the most eerie ambience. Yet, alike most forms of counter culture, it was fascinating.
Two years later, this nightmarish sounding musical group re-emerges from the black waters. “Disintegration” is the first piece off the upcoming record, Divine Prosthetics. It is a hybrid of technology and decay, the sound of suspense, not far from Blut Aus Nord. Later in the tracklisting, we hear “NORDescendant” and “Divine Prosthetics II,” the true aural form of anxiety. While these were initially perceived as burdens, nerve-prodding noise collections, I eventually saw the beauty within the soundscapes.
Where the avant-garde / technical death metal intensity on “Precise Incision” and “Calamitous” is beyond dense, the aforementioned “ambient” tracks bring balance to the overall experience of Divine Prosthetics. The dynamic from such contrasts is cathartic, like pain and healing.
The innards of Moral Collapse shows Arun Natarajan (vocals, guitar, bass) joined by Hannes Grossman (drums; Alkaloid, Necrophagist, Obscura, etc.), Sudarshan Mankad (guitar), Moiz Mustafa (guitar; Godless), Bobby Koelble (guitar; Death, Nader Sadek), Sandesh Nagaraj (samples; Till the Teeth), Julius Gabriel (saxophone, soundscapes), and Mia Zabelka (violin, samples, voice).
Preview “Precise Incision” & “NORDescendant”; pre-order Divine Prosthetics below