REVIEW: Molder - Catastrophic Reconfiguration

Illinois' Molder have not held back on their love of all things dead, decaying, decomposing and otherwise damp - and their no-bones adoration holds true right through third album 'Catastrophic Reconfiguration'. The album is fit to bursting with innards, necrotic tissue, blood, pus, reanimation and everything else you'd expect, as well as a suitably slimy album cover, designed and painted by Mexican oil painter Julian Felipe Mora Ibañez who, it's fair to say, has absolutely nailed the brief for a gory, gooey, grotty death metal album cover. But, whilst it looks like a great death metal album, in the spirit of Louis Walsh it must be asked, does it sound like a great death metal album?

This can be addressed almost immediately: if you like 90's death metal then it is without a doubt a great death metal album. From the opening title track right through to the finale 'Nothing Left To Ooze' (possible contender for song title of the year), the riffs are cavernous, the gutturals are thick and choking, the basslines are enormous and the drums are incessant. Everything on this album feels specifically placed to ensure maximum death metal-iness in a tight, sharp package, which is exactly what the band were aiming for. As put by vocalist Aaron Pantke, "We simply wanted a shorter, nastier, and more professional sounding record than what we've done before.” The band achieved that and then some, with an LP that sits under 35 minutes across ten songs and never once gives you room to breathe, for fear of inhaling the stench of some rotten corpse.

The record is a sonic evolution for the band in some ways though, as whilst it's still recognisably a Molder record, they've brought in guitarist Carlos Santini (who, it turns out, is not actually a smaller version of the famed guitarist Carlos Santana) to join the writing process for the first time. This has provided a rounder, more dynamic sound to the recording that shows through on relistens as well as the first time round, and helps keep the guitars meshed tightly to everything else. The recording process was also a new one for the band, as most of the tracking was done in the band's basements, in hopes of a more vigorous element being found in the music - and in this they have succeeded! Recording engineer Matt Aguilar has his fingerprints all over the record, and Greg Wilkinson (of Autopsy fame)'s mixing and mastering allows the newfound energy and freneticism to really show through.

Each song feels, rather than a disparate piece of writing or a part of one continuous whole, like a facet of a greater collection. The album flows brilliantly, and whilst there isn't masses of change throughout the album, the feel of each song is unique enough to allow for recognisability, whilst never straying from the Molder path. From the stomping riffs that open 'Overdue Burial' and the glacially heavy intro on 'Bursted Innards', to the pounding aggression with which Pantke spits what resembles the chorus of 'Frothing' and the echoing, needly solo that ups the tempo on 'Corpse Copulation', it all fits into one big, rabid, death metal package.

Over the last few years, genre-blending has become almost the norm in metal's underground, largely for the better. However, when bands can get into a groove as slick as the one Molder are in here then sticking firmly within the wheelhouse of death metal is thoroughly encouraged. If they're even halfway likely to spew out any more excellent releases of similar heaviness and bile-coveredness, then we must preserve them at all costs.

'Catastrophic Reconfiguration' will be released on November 8th via Prosthetic Records.

Words: Jake Longhurst

Photo: Alex Ford