Reviews: SAT344
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In the 12 years this site has been active we have written about a grand total of one metal band (Kashgar) from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Today we double that total.
Obviously, it’s still a rarity, and sent us off to get better educated, especially because the promotional material for Morfer, the band that’s the subject of today’s premiere, makes reference to their origins “among the rocky and snowy ridges, mountainous and hopeless forests of the Scandinavian Tien Shan”. What does that mean?!? Let’s learn together.
For those of us in the ignorant West, Kyrgyzstan is bounded by Kazakhstan on the northwest and north, by China on the east and south, and by Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on the south and west. It was conquered by tsarist Russian forces in the 19th century, later became a republic of the U.S.S.R., and declared its independence from the former Soviet Union on August 31, 1991.
Most of Kyrgyzstan’s borders run along mountain crests, including the Tien Shan, which is one of the great mountain systems of Central Asia (its name is Chinese for “Celestial Mountains”). That range stretches for 1,500 miles (2,500 km) and mainly straddles the border between China and Kyrgyzstan.
There is much more to be learned about the history, cultures, and fascinating geography of Kyrgyzstan, but let’s stop there and now ask again what could have been meant by that reference to “the Scandinavian Tien Shan“?
The answer lies in the fact that Morfer have drawn their musical inspiration from “the gloomy Scandinavian clouds of distorted, drawn out and mystical sounds” that form a part of classic Nordic black metal. In paying tribute to those traditions, Morfer even use the ancient Nordic instrument talharpa in their music, and they sought to create “a pagan, anti-religious, sinister and awakening atmosphere”. And indeed the labels that are releasing Morfer‘s debut album Tribunal recommend it for fans of Emperor, Satyricon, Trelldom, Bathory, Urgelah, and Burzum.
The song we bring you today, accompanied by a music video in which the band perform in a mountainous, snow-covered setting, is named “Dark Wisdom“. It races at a hurtling pace, and the guitars generate a high, whining blizzard of sound. The ice-storm harmonies pierce the mind in electrifying fashion as the drums rapidly batter and the vocalist expels gritty snarls and serrated screams with equal ferocity, creating a raw and raging assault that seems feverishly unhinged but is tremendously gripping.
There are also moments when the crashing pace briefly relents, and there the mood of the music becomes mystical and descends even deeper into feelings of desperation and gloom, though even the most maddened moments themselves seem edged with despair. Gripping pagan melodies also surface near the end as the wild tones of the talharpa enter the fray!
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2022/04/07/an-ncs-video-premiere-morfer-dark-wisdom/
Morfer are a band from Kyrgyzstan that plays an old school and Nordic influenced pagan form of black metal and this is a review of their 2022 album "Tribunal" which was released as a joint effort between Satanath Records and More Hate Productions.
Heavy yet melodic riffing starts off the album while clean playing can also be heard in some parts of the recording. Spoken word parts can also be heard briefly along with the solos and leads also adding in a great amount of melody and the vocals are mostly grim sounding black metal screams.
When the music speeds up a great amount of tremolo picking and blast beats can be heard which also gives the songs more of a r aw feeling. Throughout the recording you can also hear a decent mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts along with the album also being very heavily rooted in the Scandinavian style as well as some acoustic guitars and folk instruments also being utilized briefly and some of the tracks are also very long and epic in length.
Morfer plays a style of pagan black metal that is very heavily rooted in the Scandinavian style. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover nature and Paganism as well as a couple of songs also being written in Norwegian.
In my opinion Morfer are a very great sounding old school pagan black metal band and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this recording.
http://occultblackmetalzine.blogspot.com/2022/05/morfertribunalsatanath-recordsmore-hate.html
Kyrgyzstan band Morfer are out with the album "Tribunal", and extreme metal is the style explored on this production. Harsh, twisted lead vocals is a dominant element throughout this production, with the instrumentation placed a bit down in the mix, giving the impression of a budget, lo-fi album that is very much in line with the earlier extreme metal bands and their albums that were typically made with restricted access to resources. The music is otherwise typified by meaty, hard guitar riffs and cutting guitar solo runs that moves in fluctuating patterns with the songs typically staying in an intense mood and mode throughout. A production to seek out by those with a taste for old school extreme metal who enjoy all aspects that were typical features among extreme metal bands when this form of metal was in it's infancy in general and with mix and production in particular.