MENTAL VORTEX

"Mental Vortex" is the 4th full-length studio album by Swiss thrash metal act Coroner. The album was released through Noise Records in August 1991. It´s the successor to "No More Color" from 1989. The three-piece lineup who recorded all three predecessors is intact: Tommy T. Baron (Tommy Vetterli) on guitar, Ron Royce (Ron Broder) on bass and vocals, and Marquis Marky (Markus Edelmann) on drums.

Stylistically "Mental Vortex" is quite different from "No More Color (1989)". The material on the 8 track, 47:30 minutes long album is still technical thrash metal, but the pace has generally been lowered and the tracks on "Mental Vortex" are predominantly mid-paced and heavy, and features fewer fast-paced sections than the case was on the predecessor. It´s audible that Coroner at this point in their career felt they needed to experiment and develop their style a bit more drastically than they had done between the first three releases (not that there wasn´t great development of sound between those releases too) and paired with the general change on the thrash metal scene in those years, "Mental Vortex" is very much an album of it´s time. Coroner have not "softened" their sound or have begun to incorporate alternative metal elements like some of their contemporaries did in those days, so it´s more a matter of songwriting approach and a refusal to be labelled "just" a thrash metal act. Their brilliant cover of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" by The Beatles is an example of that. There´s an occasional dark, almost dreamy psychadelic touch to some of the tracks, which is a new element too, but Coroner don´t go overboard with those ideas.

"Mental Vortex" features a detailed and powerful, but also pretty sterile, sound production, which has robbed Coroner´s music of the organic touch it possessed on the previous releases (I´m not surprised that the album is produced by Tom Morris). It´s still a professional and well sounding production job, but it´s just very different from the sound on the predecessors. The playing is as always on a very high level. Especially guitarist Tommy Vetterli delivers one killer riff after another, and his solo work is extraordinaire (and often neo-classical influenced). Sometimes the technical shifts in rhythm sound a bit forced and awkward, disrupting the flow of the tracks, but other times those sections work pretty well.

In addition to the above mentioned cover of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", highlights include "Son of Lilith" and "Semtex Revolution", but "Mental Vortex" is pretty consistent in both quality and style. So upon conclusion it´s another high quality release by Coroner. It doesn´t exactly reach the heights of "No More Color (1989)", which was always going to be a difficult task, but it´s still an interesting release in its own right. It shows development and reeks boldness, which are parameters I value greatly, so while this is not what I would call Coroner´s best release, I still think a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is fully deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)

Coming down off their masterpiece (No More Color), Coroner's Mental Vortex feels to me like a bit of a step down. The band's chops are still tight, but there's points where their technical thrash metal style seems tired and worn out. In particular, the closing cover of the Beatles' I Want You (She's So Heavy) is drab and unimaginative, in stark contrast to previous covers of 1960s psychedelic classics by the band. Still, it's a competent enough album which offers an entertaining listen, but it isn't the world-changing experience No More Color was and suggests that the band's time was running short at this point.

Having perfected the thrash direction they aimed for with No More Color it was time for Coroner to move on. We are greeted on the cover by Mr. Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates off the film Psycho. When the needle touches the spinning vinyl, things kick off with a thrash masterpiece (featuring a sample from Re-Animator in the very first seconds) although the diminished 5th chords that Vetterli uses are far from the typical thrash vocabulary. The odd meter changes are here and this time the guitars are tuned a half step lower to achieve a heavier sound. Lyrically, the song addresses the issue of the final moment when you die. After that, the change of the direction becomes evident. Son of Lilith is slower paced, but immensely groovy although Coroner make sure that they make the life of headbangers hard with all these meter changes. The solo is superb - but then again all solos from this greatly underrated guitarist are more or less phenomenal. Semtex Revolution is along these lines, groovy, with constant changes that keep the listener's interest unfaltered. Sirens closes the first side of the vinyl showing no signs of backing down. Metamorphosis is one of the highlights of the album and generally of Coroner. The main riff is groovy as hell, the drumming absolutely driving. Pale Sister, once again, keeps the listener on their toes. It is plain that one has to be really concentrated when they are listening to Coroner or else they are bound to miss a lot of going-ons (I'm convinced that this is the reason why they and other bands of the same league never became household names. The founder of Noise Records, Karl-Ulrich Walterbach, has mentioned that even though they got ravenous reviews by the critics due to their originality, they still never reached big masses). This song alone leaves no doubt why Coroner fall into the progressive category. About Life is the thrashiest since the opener with very thoughtful lyrics (once in an interview Marquis Marky had mentioned that the biggest improvement from R.I.P. to Mental Vortex was the lyrics). Once again there are samples from another film, this time it is Hellbound: Hellraiser II. And then comes the cover the Beatles classic I Want you (She's So Heavy). It would be interesting to listen to all the covers of this song just to make sure that this is the best. A video was made for this one, too.

It was the second flawless album in a row that Coroner came up with. For many fans, this is their best. I really can't tell, but I do know that it is absolutely essential for all metal fans who want to listen something different to 99,9% of the releases out there.