Review : Molested - Stormvold

Norwegian Death Metallers Molested are better known for their chaotic and experimental full-length Blod Draum, but their equally excellent EP, Stormvold, goes unnoticed.

Stormvold starts out with an immense, brutal track called The Usurpers in Winterblood and is as awesome as it sounds. The band maintain their epic folky sound, nicely integrated with the straight-out Old School Death Metal onslaught, and the folk influences are heard more on this EP than on the full length. Although this release lacks the use of harp and has no weird-ass track like Blod-Draum, the scales used are clearly different from what you would hear in a standard Death Metal band and have an epic tinge to it. Molested keep up the complexity, bordering on chaos, which means it takes more than 5 listens to actually understand what's going on, yet it is mysteriously captivating in a way that it doesn't fry the neuron network in your brain. This is consistent through the first 3 tracks after which point, these guys completely shit on everything they've come up with. Pyre At the Tarn is an unrelenting flurry of riffs and complex drumming that would send any technical-fag drummer into hiding from the raging beast this guy is. The production is stormy, which means the guitars and drums swirl like a blazing inferno, drowning out most of the vocals, but rather than having an adverse effect, they're rendered even more demonic than they would otherwise sound. The bass is inaudible, but with music like this, you're only looking forward to be destroyed by its absolute might than worry about how the bass clunks along. The final track of the album is Following the Growls, which can also be heard on Blod Draum. The song fits here as perfectly as it does on the album, and is a good way to conclude the multiple fireballs to the face this EP delivers. Stormvold, like Molested's full-length album sprays feces all over every technical bullshit Death Metal band that ever existed, by employing actual experimental elements than just working around with time signatures and playing sweeps and pinch harmonics every two seconds. Despite that, their sound is purely organic. It's not mechanical, not triggered, but in no way human, since it sounds like a bunch of demonic incarnates conquering everything in its path.



If you like old school Death Metal and complain that it doesn't have enough complexity (which you shouldn't), this album will completely change everything for you. If you understand what they're playing on the first listen, then congratulations, you are a genius! You like Molested and liked Blod Draum, you should absolutely listen to this. It's not worth missing.


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[PS: I have no sure way of telling if it is the remastered version or the original version, but try it yourself, and don't blame me if you get the one you didn't want. There's not much of a difference, so it shouldn't matter, anyway.]