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Welcome To Unbound Zine |
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| Album Review |
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Mord-Necrosodomic Abyss
(Osmose Productions, 2008)
There is no mistaking what you are going to get from this album. From the logo to the cover art depicting Jesus being torn apart by demons, this is an album that is easy to classify as black metal. But the surprising thing is that even though the cover art makes you expect typical lo-fi black metal, Mord is an interesting and explosive black metal band with some of the fastest blasting I have ever heard in the genre.
This is an intense and aggressive album that manages to make much more impact than some black metal albums that are fast but aren't really all that intense. This has dynamics so when the blast beats kick into high gear your face is torn apart. The blast beats arent constant and mind numbing. The riffing itself actually brings in surprising diversity. There are the standard black metal riffs that both utilize minor chords and tremolo picked patterns. Elements of thrash also come into play from time to time and there is even a slight death metal feel to a lot of the riffs as well. At the end of the day this does easily fit into the black metal genre, but they certainly aren't typical of the genre.
What I think really helps the album stand out is the tremendous drumming. This is an absolutely blistering performance with a sound and blasting style that wouldnt sound out of place on a grindcore album. Even during the slower parts the drummer manages to put a lot of energy into the performance and makes the riffs have even more impact. In a genre flooded with sub par drumming this performance definitely makes an impact.
While Mord might not be doing anything new in the genre, their energetic attack and hard hitting songwriting make for an enjoyable black metal onslaught. Fans of the blistering side of black metal or possibly war metal will definitely be into this one.
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UN: Your debut album was released by Southern Lord but your latest album was released by Osmose Productions. Do you feel like Osmose is a better fit for Mord? Southern Lord is an awesome label, but Mord has a sound that, in my opinion, fits more on Osmose.
Necrolucas: Hail Satan! Osmose Productions is much more focused on promoting extreme music than Southern Lord, and of course their profile as well as long tradition in releasing BM is very important for us. There is no doubt that MORD suits Osmose very well.
UN: Did you feel any pressure going into the writing for Necrosodomic Abyss? Was topping Christendom Perished something that the band even thought about at all?
Necrolucas: We never make a goal from topping our previous releases and we try to be completely relaxed during the recording session. We use to spend a lot of time on composing music for each new release thus we can be confident of good result. This band was created to satisfy our own musical aspiration so there is no pressure from anyone.
UN: Mord is essentially just two people. Does having a small amount of members make it a bit easier? You wouldn't have to worry about pleasing everyone in the band and it is probably much easier to get things written and rehearsed. You only have the two members to learn the songs.
Necrolucas: We both have very similar musical feeling what makes the cooperation even easier. And yes, being a duo we don't need to worry about pleasing anyone else's tastes, but when it comes to learning the songs it demands from us much more work than in the situation when a band is consisted of several members.
UN: I would say that Necrosodomic Abyss has a stronger and more natural sounding production than Christendom Perished. Did you guys spend more time in the studio for this album than you ever have in the past?
Necrolucas: I agree with you. At this time we chose a different studio where I was previously recording with my other band. The recording session took about twelve days and wasn't much longer than the recording of Christendom Perished but the effect is much better hehe.
UN: I was curious to ask the reason behind calling all of your songs Opus? Is it something the band has always done?
Necrolucas: We just can't find any particular reason to use specific titles for each song. We never used titles and I suppose we'll never do that.
UN: Is it important to have the lyrics be in your native tongue? Obviously it must come more natural. Have you ever thought of using English for any of the lyrics?
Necrolucas: Lyrics are in our native languages because this gives us much more freedom in choosing words what is important to achieve the specific style of our lyrics. We never considered using English language in MORD, however to make the listeners more familiar with our lyrics we decided to put in the Necrosodomic Abyss booklet English translations of some important fragments and drawings illustrating the main lyrical themes of each opus.
UN: How did the concept for the cover art come together? Was it important to have a rather simple cover that matched the raw intensity of the bands music? It seems like some bands these days take the visual aspect of the band more seriously than they do the music.
Necrolucas: The idea of the cover came from Nordra who also found the artist who made all the drawings for Necrosodomic Abyss. The simplicity and explicitness of the artwork harmonize with our aggressive and straightforward music. It's important to have a good visual concept of the band, but when it starts to be more important than quality of music everything turns into shit.
UN: Being that there is only two of you, does the band play live at all or is Mord more of just a studio band?
Necrolucas: We think about playing live and some steps to form a session live line-up have been already made. All serious offers will be considered.
UN: A lot of bands always say in interviews that they mainly listen to the classic bands of the metal genre. Do you keep up with newer black metal bands at all? Would you say that the scene is quite strong right now?
Necrolucas: We're open for any kind of good extreme music and try to be up to date with the situation in the metal scene. There are a lot of good young bands and many very good older bands without yet established names. The scene is quite strong but there's too much scum there, nowadays it's too easy to have a band and record demos or even albums.
UN: Why black metal? What motivates you to create this type of blackened dark art? Is this the style that comes the most natural?
Necrolucas: I started with a Death Metal band in 1996, but I was always open for other extreme types of music and even had some episodes with BM bands. But the serious involvement in BM started when I joined MORD. Nordra was working on BM some projects since early nineties so it seems natural to develop the present style of MORD.
Official Mord Myspace
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