Album Review: Adversor – This Mortal Coil

Album Review: Adversor – This Mortal Coil

Reviewed by Matthew Williams

There’s an extremely impressive opening bass line as Italian thrashers Adversor begin their fourth album, “This Mortal Coil”. It starts with a short ninty second track called “Path To Oblivion”, but that ultimate question remains, which path will we tread on this journey that they are about to lead us on?

Following up the 2023 release “Portrait of a Wasteland” the quartet waste little time in getting down to some proper headbanging business, as “Shattered Visions” leads you down that avenue labelled THRASH!!! This is a joyous listen, as Dado swopping riffs aplenty with lead guitarist Phil as the group tell us that they are “taking aim at a fractured world while confronting deeply personal struggles”.

The album title track appears next and has an appealing rhythm with drummer Ja pounding away alongside bassist Ale, setting the tempo for the guitars to duel like swashbuckling heroes. The solo appears midway through the track and it’s not overly complex, but accomplished, nonetheless. The group has always had social commentary central to their lyrics, and this album pushes those limits further, as they tackle “increasingly impossible living conditions, authoritarianism, genocide, and violence against women”.

“Burn” is dedicated to Giulia Cecchettin who was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in 2024, in a case that gripped Italy. He had refused to accept the end of their relationship, and it sparked fierce debate about attacks on women, and is a hard hitting but necessary track. It’s followed by a short space age bass trip called “2066” that leads into the thrashy cosmos known as “Gargantua”, which is a follow up to a song on their debut album called “Event Horizon”.

The pace is cranked up a few notches on “Totem of Doom” as you get that ferocity associated with the likes of Kreator, and I can just imagine all sorts of pyro going off as they play it live. The solos are sharp and intense as the rhythm moves faultlessly before “Deafening Silence” stings your ears with its savage intent. They have a few seconds of a drop off before detonating more vicious sequences and further controlled guitar compositions, with a bass that hits hard. They deal with the loss of a friend during “The Heritage” and you sense the anguish in the voice of Dado throughout.

“Side By Side” leads us into the final triumvirate of songs, amidst rapid drums, which are pleasing to the ears of this old thrasher, as Ja is pounding those skins like a man possessed. It’s an audibly enjoyable track and easily the standout for me as it’s got all the components of a great thrash song. Penultimate track “Ghost of Ourselves” is, as the group explains, “an intimate examination of who we are and what we have become” and has a touch of early Megadeth about it whilst “Again… Through the Dark Portal” has more tripped out noise to end an intriguing album.

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