A lot of ink has been spilled discussing the topic of women in heavy metal. I am not going to waste a bunch of time rehashing that mostly tired subject. Suffice to say that metal musicians are mostly male. The rare female member garners a lot of attention solely based on her gender, fair or not. What I will discuss briefly is the fact that even for metal, women are underrepresented in thrash. One very notable exception is Sabine Classen from the underrated German group Holy Moses. Classen is who I would classify the Queen of Thrash. Unfortunately she has not really opened the floodgates to many young bands with female lead singers and thrash remains mostly a man's game.
Mortillery is a very young band from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. As one can probably guess by the opening paragraph, their singer Cara McCutchen is a female. Their bassist Miranda Gladeau is also female. So Mortillery has two female band members. Certainly rare for a thrash metal band.
I have spent a lot of time listening to groups coming out of Canada recently. It seems that there is a major resurgence in 1980's styled heavy and thrash metal coming out of the Great White North. Mortillery is definitely no exception to this. Their style remains staunchly rooted in early Canadian metal masters Sacrifice, Exciter, Razor, and others. They even reference Voivod with "F.O.A.D.", an acronym the sci-fi thrashers coined in "Fuck Off and Die". Mortillery does not really bring anything new to the table to this style, but it is still good-time, beer-drinking thrash metal.
What Mortillery may lack in originality they make up for in musicianship and energy. The riffwork is razor-sharp and uptempo. The vocals lack the ferociousness of the aforementioned Classen yet she definitely has a snarl all her own. The songs are fast-paced, neck-breaking tracks that grab attention and hold onto it.
This is Mortillery's second full-length album. It captured my attention. I will be looking for them in the future. Perhaps in time McCutchen and Gladeau will be ready to take over the throne as Queens of Thrash.
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