Goetia – Mortuary Cult
Release Date: 12th June 2026
Label: Carbonized Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Thrash Metal.
FFO: Nothingness, Hot Graves, Vile Apparition, Inoculation.
Review By: Aeons Burning
Sometimes you see an album that you’ve been waiting for a while, and had no idea it was coming. Goetia’s debut – Mortuary Cult – is that for me. I really enjoyed their EPs but was completely out of the loop on if they were actually releasing an album soon or not, and I’m very glad I saw Mortuary Cult in the promo bin because I got my grubby hands on it as soon as I was able to. For those unfamiliar, Goetia is ripping fast death metal that adds in just enough thrash but not enough to be a full on death/thrash band, but my goodness they take absolutely zero prisoners in their full-on assault on the listener.
After an intro piece that doesn’t do much aside from setting a nice campy vibe to the album, Lanterns of the Dead proceeds to rip your face off, and it’s all gas no brakes for the rest of Mortuary Cult. The best parts of Mortuary Cult are where Goetia go full-on idiot mode (Posthumous Execution, Excarnation, Bestial Tomb) and bring the intensity of everything to a level where you think everything is going to implode in on itself, but it never does. While most of Mortuary Cult consists of purely neck-snapping riffs, those three songs are absolute monsters, being some of the most violent death metal I’ve listened to this year, and I love when my death metal sounds like a rabid beast that just spotted a free meal.
Goetia prove they’re adept at writing longer tracks too, with Earth Inferno and Eternal Samhain being standouts. Both of these songs are the longest on Mortuary Cult, but Goetia handily proves they don’t just write killer short songs, because these are also guaranteed to go hog wild live. Focusing more on big riffs than pure aural violence, Goetia are quick to show that they’re quite talented at writing albums rather than just short-yet-delightful EPs, and that’s what I was most concerned with heading into Mortuary Cult.
It seems that each month has given me a very good to great death metal album to listen to, and unless something changes, I think Goetia is that record for me this month. Mortuary Cult is a crisp 30 minutes, and goes down real quick, so you want to play it again because of how utterly batshit insane it gets at some points. This is one of the most impressive debuts I’ve heard in a very long time, and Goetia have hit the ground running with this one. Top-tier stuff.
(4 / 5)
