This is one of the early of many many demos from Mortal Wish who would become Mortal as we know them now. Many of these demo’s have the same tracks but with different mixes. Jerome Fontamillas and Jyro Xhan were serial recorders and cataloged the bands work over the years. This demo is more new wave than the industrial sound we would be used to hearing from them. This album has more a The Cure sound and I absolutely love it. In fact I far prefer this sound than their sound as Mortal. Now in fairness the new wave sound was getting pretty well played out by the time of their first Mortal album in 1992 so the decision to lean industrial metal was a good decision. But for me I love this sound and there’s not a bad track on this demo for me.
Mortal was Jerome Fontamillas and Jyro Xhan and these are 2 of the hardest working guys in the Christian music industry. They had been in a previous band called Mortal Wish, but that band morphed into this one. Jerome and Jyro were born in the Philippines, but I can’t find out much about their early life other than that. Anyway, they had a great demo/EP while named Mortal Wish which got them a record deal with Intense Records. The record company brought in Terry Taylor (Daniel Amos) to produce the album, and he brought in Rob Watson (Daniel Amos) to engineer the album. They did a great job and this quickly became the premier Industrial style album of the period. The next part of the story for these guys and the band is quite interesting, but we’ll get into that in one of their future releases. As for the album, this is a pretty good album that was quite popular with the metal crowd, though I don’t hear much metal. I have read the album referred to as an Industrial Metal album. I don’t really hear the metal part, but it’s a great album and let’s face it, we all have different ways of describing things. Give this one a listen if you like your music a little more fringe and less top 40.
Tracklist 1 – Enfleshed (The Word Is Alive) – 4:39 2 – Mytho-X – 4:26 3 – If Ever Maria – 4:21 4 – Fisherman – 4:39 5 – Painkiller – 4:51 6 – Tuesday Assassin – 5:39 7 – Rescinding – 4:54 8 – Cryptic – 5:38 9 – Miracle Man – 3:53 10 – Santa Cruz – 4:30 11 – S.F.N. – 1:00 12 – Sinister – 5:23 13 – Enfleshed (Alive Is The Word Remix) – 4:38
Credits Art Direction – Ed McTaggart Design – Joe Potter Engineer – Rob Watson Mastered By – Doug Doyle Music Consultant [Pre-production Consultant] – Ramald Domkus Performer [Mortal Is] – Jerome Fontamillas, Jyro Xhan Producer – Terry Taylor Songwriter [Songs Written By] – Jyro Xhan
