SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: ONDFØDT, MAN MUST DIE, MORS SUBITA, VERTEBRAE FETISH TOTEM, CHOIR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jan 212023
 


Ondfødt

I’ve concluded that sleeping late is a luxury to be indulged, probably because I’ve done so little of it. I still never do it during the work week, and pre-pandemic I was so habitualized to getting up before the ass-crack of dawn revealed itself that I awakened very early on the weekends too, even when there was no sensible reason to do that. The pandemic caused lots of us to re-think lots of things, and for me one of those things was the habit of crawling out of bed at 5 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

I mean, hell, I’m not a farmer, just a compulsive blogger. Still, the compulsion is strong and I’ve had to make a concerted effort to re-train my subconscious mind, convincing it not to wake me up, or when it does, training my conscious mind to just close my eyes and let the sleep take me again. And man, does sleeping feel good, even if the robot part of my brain still feels a little anxiety when I do eventually wake up, under the illusion that I’ve been wasting time.

Well, that’s an absurdly long-winded way of getting to the point that, once again, I slept late today. I still wanted to find some new songs and videos to recommend before the small number of people who actually visit NCS on a Saturday just vanished altogether. Here’s what I chose: Continue reading »

MORS SUBITA: “INTO THE PITCH BLACK”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Aug 142018
 

 

(This is TheMadIsraeli’s review of the new album by Finland’s Mors Subita, which was released by Inverse Records on April 6th of this year.)

Mors Subita are a peculiar band to me, but one that scratch a lot of itches. While they’ve always embodied everything great about energetic, riff-driven European melodic death metal might, their embracing of the more metalcore elements of the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal bands like Chimaira, Lamb Of God, etc., has always caused them to stand apart from a lot of their current peers. These guys love the ’90s and early 2000s at their core, which resonates with me considering that a lot of my favorite metal in my formative listening years came from those eras.

The thing is, this Soilwork-meets-Chimaira-ism of Mors Subita produces some pretty compelling, consistently driving piston-pressure metal that includes the epic melodic scope and guitar work of melodic death metal as well as the beefy sense of groove and emotive sensibilities of their metalcore influences.  It’s junk food metal at its purest and finest, and I mean that as no insult whatsoever.  Into The Pitch Black is one of the year’s best records in my book, both addictive and engrossing. Continue reading »

GET TO THE POINT: MIKA LAMMASSAARI (MORS SUBITA)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
Mar 022015
 

(In this new installment of KevinP’s interview series, he talks with Mika Lammassaari, guitarist of Finland’s Mors Subita, who have a new album named Degeneration coming out soon — and we’ve also got the official lyric video for the new album’s first single, “End Complete“.)

K:  So it’s been 4 years since the release of your debut album, Human Waste Compression, fill us in on what’s going on?

M:  To be quite honest, the last 4 years have been just a mere glimpse, it´s gone past so fast. During this time we´ve toured with Mors Subita and written the new album, obviously. Unfortunately, we also had a couple changes in the line-up, so that has caused a few grey hairs.

All in all it´s been a lot of great moments and we´re more than excited to be releasing the successor to HWC. Right now, we´re doing the final prepping for the release of the new album and rehearsing a lot with the band. Continue reading »

OH THOSE CRAZY FINNS!

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Jul 152012
 

I would like to chalk this up to the benefits of clean living, but who am I kidding? It’s just more of the dumb luck with which my entire life seems to have been blessed.

So, I’m sitting around feeling all mopey and disgusted because of some news I saw this morning that turned an inspiring metal story into what looks like a big fuckin’ con job . . . which will be described in tomorrow’s first post. And on top of that, a run of five straight days of glorious weather in Seattle has been interrupted with some gray dankness up in the sky this morning. In a nutshell, I needed some cheering up, pronto.

And then what should appear in my e-mail in-box at just the right moment but a message from Finnish NCS fan jeimssi with a link to a brand new Mors Subita video, which includes some film made by jeimssi himself.

I pressed play, and suddenly I perked right up, I got the big smiley face, I banged my fuckin’ head. I barely resisted the urge to rip off my headphones, grab a brew, put the music on the external speakers, and start finding shit in my house to bust up — an urge I resisted at the last minute only after remembering that it’s 7:45 in the fucken morning and my wife is still asleep. That was a near thing, as in a near-death experience, as in yours truly coming THAT close to being the victim of a spousal homicide. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2011’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: PART 12

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011  1 Response »
Jan 062012
 

This is Part 12 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

Once I’d decided to include today’s two songs on this list, combining them in a single post was an obvious call: Both bands are from Finland (if you get tired of hearing about Finnish metal, you’re obviously at the wrong place); both songs have almost exactly the same name; and of course both songs are awfully catchy.

MORS SUBITA

Human Waste Compression, the 2011 album by this band (whose names means “sudden death”) was one I reviewed in October (here), but that wasn’t our first mention of the band last year. In May,  I saw an official video for a song from the album called “The Sermon”, and it really got me all fired up with enthusiasm and the words spilled out in a post. At that point, Mors Subita was unsigned and holding up release of the album while they sought label backing.

In August, Violent Journey Records announced that they had signed Mors Subita, and it was cool to see some of my gushing words from May quoted in the Violent Journey press release. At the same time, the band released their second video for Human Waste Compression, and of course I had to write about all that here. Continue reading »

MORS SUBITA: “HUMAN WASTE COMPRESSION”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Oct 212011
 

For a band I like as much as Finland’s Mors Subita, I’m inexcusably late in reviewing their debut album Human Waste Compression. I’ve been listening to it off and on since long before the September 21 official release by Violent Journey Records, and it hasn’t worn out its welcome.

The band’s winning formula combines elements of thrash, groove, and Bodom-style melodic death metal. The music moves like a racehorse burning up the track, with slamming beats, frenetic riffs, and swarming guitar solos. Antti Haapsamo snarls like a really pissed-off bobcat, backed by bear-like roars. Put all that together and you get 11 tracks of modern metal that are electrifying and head-whipping.

The musicians can all really fly, the guitars and the heavy metallic sound of the bass generating rapid, jabbing pulses, their rhythms working seamlessly with the heavy artillery blasting away from the vicinity of the drum-kit. The rhythms have a pneumatic, almost industrial quality to them. The band also benefit from a talent for creating short melodic choruses via the lead guitar (or through dual-guitar harmonies) that are catchy and invariably will get your foot tapping and your head nodding. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 9)

 Forthcoming Albums  20 Responses »
Sep 032011
 


It’s Labor Day Weekend, August is a thing of the past, and as some people count it, summer is over. School is on the verge of resuming for people still attempting to educate themselves, and a ton of new metal tours are looming on the horizon for the fall. And of course, the fall will be filled with new album releases, too. Which brings us to the latest monthly edition of METAL IN THE FORGE.

You know the drill:  In these posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album before August, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. And feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that you’re stoked about. Continue reading »

MORS SUBITA PUTS ANOTHER HOLE IN MY HEAD (AND A SMILE ON MY FACE)

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Aug 082011
 

We stumbled across a terrific unsigned Finnish band called Mors Subita at the end of May. They had just released an official video for a song called “The Sermon” from their debut album (then unreleased) called Human Waste Compression. I was so damned taken prisoner by the song that I immediately posted about it (here).

Turns out that I wasn’t the only one taken by the music. This morning, Violent Journey Records announced the signing of Mors Subita and an official release date for Human Waste Compression: September 21. I have to admit, it was cool to see words from our earlier post quoted in the Violent Journey release. But I would have been very happy for these dudes anyway.

As icing on all this good pancake, I also discovered that last Friday the band released an official video for a second song from the new album, called “Burden”. I like the song as much, maybe even more, than “The Sermon”. It’s yet another heavy-grooved blast of compulsive rhythms and catchy melody that punched another hole right through my head. It was really fucken tough to resist headbanging, but I was afraid something would come out through the holes if I did.

Check out Mors Subita’s latest sonic missile after the jump, and start counting the days until Sept 21. Suomi perkele! Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 6)

 Forthcoming Albums  2 Responses »
Jun 022011
 


Damn, I’m finally able to go outside without shivering and being beaten about the head and shoulders with high winds and rain blowing sideways. That must mean it’s June in Seattle!  And so it is. A largely dismal May is behind us, the Seattle Mariners are astonishingly only a game and a half out of first place in their division (that’s baseball for you outlanders), and the summer lies ahead.

What else lies ahead? A bunch of new metal, of course. And because it’s the beginning of a new month, we’re bringing you another installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, in which we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album during April or preceding months, we wrote about them in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. Continue reading »

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR THE DAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 312011
 

Nah, this isn’t going to become a recurring feature on the site, but I couldn’t resist posting this cartoon, which appeared in The New Yorker mag. Credit goes to the very clever cartoonist William Haefeli.

But since this is NCS, I think I need to throw in some music, and man, do I have some music! The band is called Mors Subita. They’re from Finland, of course. They’ll be releasing their debut album, Human Waste Compression, this summer (they’re still looking for a record label).  Isn’t that a great album title? By the way, according to Google Translate, “mors subita” means “sudden death” in Latin.

According to a press release, the CD will contain “11 tracks of aggressive, melodic and groovy metal.” They’ve just released an official video for a song from that debut album called “The Sermon”. If all sermons were like this, I would start going to church again.

Yes, it’s groovy — massively so. Yes, it’s aggressive — with fangs and claws bared. Yes, it’s catchy as a damned ebola virus. Listening to this song is like the feeling I imagine you’d get if you decided to do chin-ups on a live power line. It will send about 10,000 volts straight through to your cranial pleasure center. In other words, dis be some sweet shit. Nicely done video, too. You can watch after the jump. Suomi perkele! Continue reading »