Molder: Engrossed In Death Metal

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Death metal continues to keep growing and festering across the world like an unwanted mould problem in your bathroom, but is there ever enough? For the most part, the answer from many of us would be, “absolutely not” but when talking to the bands themselves trying to fight for space in the petri dish that is the metal scene, how over saturated is it becoming? Take a band like MOLDER for instance, who are on the brink of releasing their third album aptly named, Catastrophic Reconfiguration, and in the grand timeline of the genre are pretty fresh after starting in 2017 and releasing their debut in 2020 just as lockdown hit. Fast forward to now and they’ve just completed a run of shows in support of the likes of JUNGLE ROT, EXHUMED and OBITUARY as well as playing at Maryland Deathfest, a feat founder Aaren Pantke always wanted to achieve.

“That’s [Maryland Deathfest] like honestly in part is why I even started the band. I was just always going as a kid growing up, feeling like this is what I want to do and getting to do it honestly super gratifying. That was our first Maryland Deathfest experience, it was incredible and really set the tone for the rest of the year.”

With this third album, MOLDER keep doing what they do best, which is believing that if death metal ain’t broke, don’t fix it but with a new guitarist in the mix, Aaren feels the four piece were able to add a new dimension to the record. “When I started the band, everything was kind of just meat and potatoes, less was more death metal. You know, super short songs, very to the point kind of a thing but as time goes on, other things obviously bleed their way into the band influence wise. I’ve never really been an actual guitar player, I predominantly play drums, so playing guitar was just a bare minimum thing and I never got interested in becoming a shredder. Finding our buddy Carlos was down to actually join was a huge relief for the band and we were able to write and jive way better.”

The result has left MOLDER feeling confident in Catastrophic Reconfiguration and from what has been released so far, there’s no denying the production and writing evolution. He continues, “there’s a little more lead work and guitar solos just because we have an elite guitar player now – I just think it sounds better, the production value of it’s just definitely jumped up! Other than that, you can pretty much expect the same kind of music, same style, same thing!”

The conversation of lockdown comes back up and it becomes apparent just how tricky it is to balance keeping the authenticity of the band you want to create and the pressure to gain traction in such a packed-out space. Social media is a divisive topic, with bands feeling the only way to gain new fans is via virality on TikTok, whilst others want to keep it old school, especially in extreme genres. “It’s so cringe, isn’t it? I know some people like that activity with the audience and they like the engagement but that’s not a band to me, that’s a product. I’d rather just post about shows or playing, not just random frivolous nonsense, just for the sake of getting some likes!”

Whilst many of us sat in our bedrooms in those bizarre COVID years desperately looking for inspiration and things to do, many used the opportunity to have free time to finally get creative with music, leading to another surge of bands being uploaded to Encylopedia Metallum at an alarming rate. “There was a snowball effect where all these new bands would get signed up so then I just feel like that influenced a lot of kids to want to do the same. I don’t think that’s a bad thing but like anything else, I just think there’s too many like bands or too many people trying to be a part of something instead of just enjoying it and taking it in for what it is.”

Aaren continues, “everyone’s allowed to write music, that’s not my point. But it does gets to a point where like we were saying it’s been a genre music for 40 years that has been beaten to the absolute ground and there’s only so many bands that can come out and regurgitate something that is somewhat original enough to consider palatable. All these new bands coming out sounded exactly like FROZEN SOUL or insert band that just got a platform which is great. But it did get pretty crazy with the amount of bands that just came out of the woodwork in a matter of two years and there was a period there where it did feel like ‘man this sucks, I don’t even want to be in a death metal band anymore’.”

There’s something refreshing about a younger band being so keen to stay engrossed in their rotten roots and keep the spirit of the 80s and 90s scene alive and well. Quoting the likes of AUTOPSY, OBITUARY and SKITSYSTEM as influences, MOLDER don’t see themselves fitting in with the gang of fresh death metal appearing in recent years like FROZEN SOUL or GATECREEPER. “We want no modernity whatsoever. We just really stick to an old school mindset of ensuring it sounds like the specific niche era of music and that was for sure the goal. I mean, the new stuff’s great but we figured there’s a lot of bands doing it and we didn’t really need to add to it because they’re doing it much better than we probably would have.”

Despite all this, MOLDER carried on trucking through and since have released three records that are slowly getting them to audiences they deserve. With upcoming shows next year in Europe and festivals to be announced, make sure to keep an eye out for them and see if you agree that meat and potatoes death metal is still the tastiest.

Catastrophic Reconfiguration is out now via Prosthetic Records. 

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The post Molder: Engrossed In Death Metal appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.

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