With its inception in New York City in 2018, Morbid Sphere was born an heir to the location's long legacy of dark and oppressive death metal. Among its primary influences, the band perhaps unsurprisingly mentions Incantation, fellow denizens of the same depraved metropolis whose well-established and recognizable body of work is reflected in Morbid Sphere's initial recordings. Said parallel aside, this relatively newfound quartet's sound has been shaped by a variety of influences that give it multiple dimensions and thus distinguish it from what one might be led to expect based simply on its place of origin and assigned subgenre. Similarly to the legendary Disembowelment of a continent far-removed, Morbid Sphere takes advantage of the space between notes and beats just as effectively as it conjures those elements themselves. The band also reaches outside the typical boundaries of death metal in drawing inspiration from the works of Ved Buens Ende and Virus, in particular through its use of progressive and unorthodox melodic ideas. The result of this recipe was first captured on "Demo I" and "Demo II," which are hereby compiled and reissued as "Arcana" by Nuclear War Now! Productions. Although it may only be the introduction for many to Morbid Sphere, "Arcana" represents a promising new branch in the firmly-rooted NYC death metal tree. - C. Conrad
