CORONER · Mental Vortex | DIGIPAK CD

CD in jewelcase.

Background information about ''

If there was ever a moment where thrash metal took a sharp left turn into uncharted territory and somehow made it sound like the most natural thing in the world, Mental Vortex is it. Coroner didn't just push boundaries on their third album — they basically redrew the map. Released in 1991, this record is where technical precision meets a kind of eerie, almost jazz-inflected progressive sensibility that nobody else in the scene was even attempting. Ron Royce's bass work alone is worth the price of admission — growling, melodic, and always locked into these labyrinthine grooves that Marquis Marky seems to conjure from another dimension. And Tommy T. Baron? The man's riffs on tracks like "Divine Step (Conspectu Mortis)" and "Son of Lilith" are so cold and surgical they could cut glass, yet they never lose that essential thrash grit.

The production, handled by Tom Morris at the legendary Morrisound Studios, gives everything this crystalline clarity that actually enhances the weirdness rather than smoothing it out. You can hear every ghostly keyboard line from Kent Smith, every off-kilter rhythmic shift, every moment where the band decides to take a perfectly good riff and twist it into something unexpected. "Semtex Revolution" hits with the force its title suggests, while "Pale Sister" lurches and staggers with a kind of demented grace. And then there's the closer — a cover of The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" that transforms the original into a seven-minute doom-laden monster. It shouldn't work, but it absolutely does, which is basically the story of this entire album.

This 2026 reissue on Listenable Records brings the album back with a fresh remaster by Andy Pearce, giving these eight tracks the sonic treatment they've always deserved. The progressive metal landscape of today owes an enormous debt to what Coroner achieved here — before Dream Theater went fully prog, before Opeth started experimenting, there was Mental Vortex, staring into the abyss with a knowing smirk.

For fans of:
Watchtower, Voivod, Atheist, Mekong Delta, Death, Cynic

Track listing

1. Divine Step (Conspectu Mortis)
2. Son Of Lilith
3. Semtex Revolution
4. Sirens
5. Metamorphosis
6. Pale Sister
7. About Life
8. I Want You (She's So Heavy)

Manufacturer: Listenable Records, 26 Rue de Bertinghen, 62200 Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France, Contact: www.listenable.eu