EP Review: Mors Verum – The Living (Total Dissonance Worship)

What better soundtrack to ride out the ongoing dark times than potent dismal death metal from Mors Verum? The Ontario, Canada-based trio, active since 2014, features well-known drummer Greg Carvalho (ex-Bloodshot Dawn live, Aepoch) paired with multi-instrumentalist Mrudul Kamble on guitar/bass and vocalist Lyndon Quadros have plenty of potent venom and killer ideas to spare on their new EP, The Living. Set for release on Friday, November 5th through Total Dissonance Worship (Nightmarer, etc.).

Mors Verum band says:

“The Living” is a concept EP that beckons the listener to inspect life as an artifact of death and its infinity. Dissonant passages, dizzying drums, introspective lyrics, and groovy chaos come together to create a musical journey flowing with variety. The song titles create the sentence “Inside Death’s Womb Purge the Living.” A statement reflecting our observations of conscious existence. Crafted with intention and vigor, “The Living” is the most focused and intense release from Mors Verum. Though the subject matter is grim, the music implores the listener to seek beauty in the vast emptiness of mortality.

Miserable and murky, Mors Verum bring two things with this new EP. The first is wretched darkness and the second is hopeless heaviness. An EP that is impressive for how it sounds so chaotic but proves to be firmly structured. It’s a far more refined product than the initial flurry that Inside showcases suggests.

It’s what you might call an ‘attention grabber’.

So, attention well and truly grabbed. Death’s is even meatier and meaner sounding as the instruments crash and clash together in a discordant way. Before the pace is picked up again and Mors Verum somehow get heavier than before. A mid-point guitar solo offers some levity to grasp but it’s brief.

Womb serves as more of an intermission but one with chilling feel to it. The soft melody combined with a howling wind grows in stature as it goes on but never fully transforms. That is saved for Purge, where Mors Verum bring bleak instrumentation akin to cinder blocks tied around the ankles as you’re thrown into a freezing lake. It’s terrifying but, as the concept suggests, has this ability to create imagery in your head. You might be struggling for breath but the important thing is that you are struggling and not giving up.

It makes the finale of The Living all the more impactful as Mors Verum go all out one more time with the title track. An unsurprisingly intense finish that caps this off as one hell of an intense EP. It’s a layered EP though that is more than just ‘heavy’.

Mors Verum – The Living Full Track Listing:

1. Inside
2. Death’s
3. Womb
4. Purge
5. The Living

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