From time to time I meet well-intentioned bands who hand me their self-released (or even self-UNreleased) CDs only for me to discover a mish-mash of half-baked ideas aggravated by an insufferable sound. But I continue to accept these recordings with the hope of unearthing some gems. It takes EPs such as Morgue Orgy’s “The River And I” to vindicate my perpetual quest.

One of the strongest virtues of this EP is the originality of the music. Essentially it’s Death Metal and Gore but there are also strong elements of Black Metal besides very subtle elements of Classic Rock. A remarkable particularity is the use of keyboards that doesn’t detract from the brutality and coherence of the songs. Far from it. In fact I’ve heard very few bands to do that successfully before. The attentive listener will also discern some clean vocals in this mini-album – again, these are used quite tastefully.

‘The Arkham Waltz’ is one of the better tracks in this EP (and, at just under 2 minutes, also one of the shorter ones). In particular, I digged the nifty guitar solo towards the end of this track.

All in all a commendable debut from a band with burgeoning potential.