Mortification - New Album Artwork Revealed!

 Mortification - Scribes of the Pentateuch

Mortification has just released album artwork for their upcoming album Scribes of the Pentateuch - a celebration of 21 years of Mortification.  For those of you unfamiliar with the band, Mortification helped to revolutionize Christian metal with their release Scrolls of the Megilloth, a death metal masterpiece that helped place the Aussie band in a worldwide spotlight.  I'm not exactly sure why the hand is robotic - it reminds me of the pincer of a giant mechanical crab.  But hey, it looks kind of cool and has a definite Scrolls vibe to it.

Steve Rowe claims that the new songs on Scribe of the Pentateuch will be in the vein of old Mortification (death metal, as opposed to their experimentation with thrash, heavy metal, and even power metal).  It's safe to say that Steve is still putting his faith out there for the world to see - Mortification is a band that has had a slew of critics perhaps only surpassed by Jayson Sherlock's band Horde - but the horde (yes, it is a lame pun) of critics that have come after Steve can't deny that Mortification has helped to shape the genre of Christian metal, if nothing else.

The current lineup of Mortification is Steve Rowe on vocals and bass, Troy Dixon on guitar, and Andrew Eshouf on drums.  The band has been working hard to fund their new album through Steve's record label.  If you're interested in supporting them, you can head over to the link here.  Steve also gives us a preview of one of the new songs - a bit impromptu, perhaps, but nonetheless exciting.

As a diehard fan I'm excited to see what Mortification will release next - and while many of their over a dozen full-length records in the later era haven't been stellar through and through, I always manage to find a gem that I just can't stop listening to.  Steve Rowe isn't mortified to share the name of Jesus Christ through metal, and as an historic landmark his band is certainly one of the fathers of Christian metal.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?  Do you like the artwork?  Will you get the album?