Mors Principium Est: Dawn of the 5th Era

Some melodeath musings & a short review of the new album of Finnish melodic death metal band Mors Principium Est. (Only recommended to metal fans.)

It is purely personal preference, but I don't find Mors Principium Est to be as unique as Insomnium or Omnium Gatherum, although they are of a similar vein of Finnish melodeath bands. The sound of the previous two bands, while the same genre, is distinctly different from the 'traditional' Gothenburg-based Swedish melodic death. That signature sound is something even Children of Bodom differs from, what with their roots in black metal. Mors Principium Est is probably the most similar to those older bands - they don't use clean vocals, they're their music is very fast-paced, highly technical and the heavy death metal influence is strongly there. You can also take this as me saying I don't have any technical knowledge of metal music composition or anything like that. I'm just a girl who claims to like metal while actually disliking the very heavy stuff and liking catchy choruses.

This brings me to a point I wanted to talk about for a while now. I mean, besides my constant repetition of 'I like metal, but not that kind of metal'. I think people mindlessly dissing metal are ignorant, but I don't actually like some genres of it - I heavily dislike black metal, especially the evidently right-wing bands. I find trash metal kind of boring (this is where my metal friends kill me, because who doesn't like Slayer or Megadeth?). All those American sub-genres like sludge are just alien to me. Some folk metal I like, some I find really over-the-top with their constant fascination of ages long gone. Doom metal is okay, but it's very background.
And with death metal, I have a weird relationship. For one part, I like it, event though it's too heavy for me. What really kills it for me, for the most part, are the lyrics - I just honestly cannot stand some of those. I could never enjoy something like Cannibal Corpse with all the violence and gore. I like my music to be more atmospheric, and while I wouldn't say I'm very focused on the lyrics (that's what punk rock is for), but I prefer them not promoting something I hate. Which is what leads me to melodic death: in addition to being a lot milder in terms of sound, their lyrics have a very different focus than usual death metal bands. Yeah, they do sing about death, but they rarely ever focus on the physical aspects of it, it's generally a lot more 'spiritual', something I appreciate a lot. (This is where I profess my love to Insomnium lyrics.)

Now, Mors Principium Est aren't particularly strong in the lyrics department, but they certainly have a strong atmosphere, which shows in this record as well. I was actually quite disappointed in the beginning, because Enter the Asylum is kinda meh as far as intros go, just compare it with Omnium Gatherum's Luoto or Insomnium's The Primeval Dark, and God Has Fallen sounded very generic. Leader of the Titans is a tad bit more interesting, I liked the intro, and the solo-ish part around 3:30 is amazing. The next two songs made me like the album, We Are the Sleep and Innocence Lost are stand-outs to me. The former is a really epic, six-minute song with some killer trademark MPE guitars, while the second one has some interesting violin-like synth choices and a very catchy, melodic chorus. I Am War is brutal, epic, also trademark MPE. Monster In Me was the first released track, and while I don't think it's my favourite it's a pretty good song, with an interesting chorus and fast guitars. Then comes an instrumental track, Apricity (from latin, means 'warmth of the sun'), which is about a hundred times better than the intro. I hold my statement that the best melodic metal bands are the ones capable of writing good instrumental pieces. Wrath of Indra is very fast-tempo, an abrupt change from the previous song, and I can see it being popular with fans of the band - but I don't like it that much. The Journey isn't that unique a song either, the last one, The Forsaken is, however, a nice, melodic semi-ballad, a good note the end the album on.

Overall, I think this is a pretty solid album, even if it doesn't have that many stand-out songs. 

My top three picks: We Are the Sleep, Innocence Lost, Monster In Me.