Showing posts with label Messora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Messora. Show all posts

Monday, October 31, 2022

Messora/Burn/2022 Full Length Review

 


  Messora  are  a  band  from  Montreal,  Quebec,  Canada  that  has  been  featured  before  in  this  zine  and  plays  a  melodic  and  progressive  mixture  of  black,  doom  and  death  metal  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  self  released  2022  album  "Burn"  which  will  be  released  in  December.


    A  very  dark,  heavy  and  melodic  sound  starts  off  the  album  while  you  can  also  hear  all  of  the  musical  instruments  that  are  present  on  the  recording.  Vocals  are  mostly  death  metal  growls  along  with  the  slower  sections  of  the  songs  also  bringing  in  elements  of  doom  metal  and  the  music  also  has  its  atmospheric  moments.


  The  album  also  mix  in  a  great  amount  of  black  metal  influences  while  some  tracks  also  add  in  a  small  amount  of  clean  playing.  which  also  takes  the  music  into  more  of  a  progressive  direction.  Clear  vocals  can  also  be  heard  briefly  along  a  couple  of  the  songs  also  being  acoustic  ballads,  one  track  is  also  an  instrumental  and  the  whole  recording  sticks  to  either  s  slow  or  mid  tempo  direction.


  On  this  recording  Messora  takes  melodic  black,  doom,  death  and  progressive  metal  and  mixes  them  together  to  create  a  very  diverse  recording.  The  production  sounds  very  professional  while  the  lyrics  cover  science  fiction  themes.


  In  my  opinion  this  is  another  great  sounding  recording  from  Messora  and  if  you  are  a  fan  of  melodic  and  progressive  black,  doom  and  death  metal,  you  should  check  out  this  album.  RECOMMENDED  TRACKS  INCLUDE  "Seed"  "Respite"  adn  "Winter".  8  out  of  10.


  https://found.ee/O8E6oQ


https://www.facebook.com/MessoraBand/

https://www.instagram.com/messoraband/

https://messora.bandcamp.com/        

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Messora Interview

1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?



Z- Messora is a band that plays a seemingly non-identifiable subgenre of Metal, but we attach the label Progressive Death Metal for the sake of fitting somewhere. It’s pretty much a one-man band/solo project with me, Zach Dean, at the head of the project. The first live lineup was formed in early 2017.



2.Recently you have released a new album, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style you went for on the recording?



Z- The style that we were going for was definitely within the “Progressive Death Metal” realm, but we weren’t trying to sound “Proggy” or like any particular prog band. I had lots and lots of ideas that I wanted to put into each song and lots of moods that I thought should be explored and touched on in each piece, which resulted in the record having many long, multi-faceted songs, and each song bringing a different atmosphere and mood to the whole. The idea was also always to be conceptual, in the traditional sense in terms of lyrical theme, but also musically by having each song fit perfectly with the others and creating an overarching work and not just a collection of songs.



3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects you have explored so far with your music?



Z- The Door is a concept album that explores the desire to escape from the world, how one achieves this escape and what one is running from in the first place. I think that many people can relate to this situation in a variety of ways, so the lyrics are fairly obscure and “big picture” rather than focused on a particular situation.



4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Messora'



Z- The name is extremely meaningless. I wanted to use the name Messorem, which is Latin for the word Reaper. There were already a few bands using that name, so I altered the word and that that it was fitting.



5.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?



Z- The artwork was drawn by my sister Maya. She’s a phenomenal artist, and she’s only 17 years old. It’s meant to depict the “character” that the lyrics revolve around, the person wanting to escape. The figure is being pulled towards outside of the frame, representing the deep desire and pull that they feel to escape their world and be thrown into a different one.



6.The band started out as a solo project, what was the decision behind expanding into a full line up?



Z- I was playing in a band called Whispers in the Maze with Ben, our current bass player. I had asked him to record bass on an early version of the song The Door, and we were both so happy with the way that that song turned out that we decided that the project needed to expand into the live world, and not stay just a solo recording project. At the time the project didn’t have a name or anything behind it, but we completed the live lineup pretty quickly and it’s been going well ever since.



7.What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and also how would you describe your stage performance?



Z- Montréal has been very kind and welcoming to us. The band was originally formed in the Ottawa region but I’ve relocated the project here, and it’s been very nice here. The first time that we played at Piranha bar here in Montréal was extremely memorable. Everyone was so into it, the whole place was on fire. Rob the Witch from Necronomicon was there, and came up and congratulated all of us on our performance. I still see him wearing one of our shirts sometimes. More recently, we played our release show for The Door at a place called O Patro Vys. It’s a smaller venue but it has a cool vibe and we packed the place. It was super satisfying, everyone had great things to say about the show and the album, and the atmosphere was full of love and support.



8.Do you have any touring or show plans for the new album?



Z- Unfortunately the current live lineup is not extremely well equipped or touring, so we’re not going to be able to hit as many cities as I would have liked to. We did our release show in Montréal, and at the moment we’ve got Pembroke and Ottawa coming up, with a possible date in North Bay as well. The touring will definitely get more intensive in 2020.



9.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?



Z- I honestly don’t know whether I want to work with a label in the future. I am planning on doing a bit of “label shopping” for our next release, but my decision to work with a label will come down to the type of deal that we get. As it stands working independently is going very well for us, so I would need to be offered a beneficial deal in order to want to give up this independence.



10.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of extreme metal?



Z- The record has been receiving a lot more attention internationally than I had initially expected. We’ve had Bandcamp sales in Poland, Slovenia, Mexico, Japan, the US, and the Netherlands to name a few. Most of our Spotify listeners are also American rather than Canadian, which I found surprising. It’s cool to see, I really didn’t expect the record to reach this far after having been released for not even two weeks. The record has also been reviewed by many foreign publications, and always positively.



11.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?



Z- I have plenty of ideas for the future of Messora, and I think we’re going to have a heavily varied discography in the coming years. I think it’s going to get more experimental and progressive, and at the same time more simple and streamlined. I think it’s going to stay generally conceptual. The Door is already fairly out there and challenging, so I don’t feel that we’ve painted ourselves into a corner musically or anything like that. I think that those who enjoy our debut will be along for the ride for wherever we go in the future. I’m very excited to see what we come up with.



12.what are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?



Z- The bands that I listened to the most when I was getting into the heavier side of metal, around the time that I was 15ish, were Slayer, Opeth, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom and Whitechapel. I think that naturally your first influences are often the ones that stick with you the most. I don’t think that our music sounds like any one of these bands at all, but you can absolutely hear the influence there. I’ve obviously discovered and fell in love with countless bands since then, but I feel like these five bands are the foundation of what I do in terms of heavy music. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of old Prog, namely Emerson, Lake and Palmer, King Crimson and Camel. It’s crazy to me how out there these bands wanted to be and how far they wanted to push Rock music. I’ve also been interested in simpler and more textural music, like Swans and the latest Daughters album.



13.What are some of your non musical interests?



Z- I like reading quite a bit, fictional novels as well as comic books. I’ll usually try to discover new books by buying ones that seem interesting for super cheap at thrift stores. Sometimes I’ll find an absolute gem (The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran comes to mind), but sometimes I end up loathing what I’ve gotten myself into and just want to finish it so I can move onto something else (Twilight of The Idols by Nietzche, total wankery). I’ve recently been enjoying bouldering with my friends as well, but that takes a toll on my arms and makes it difficult to play guitar so I don’t really see myself becoming a climber any time soon.



14.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?



Z- Go listen to The Door! It was extremely satisfying for us to make it and I’m extremely proud of the album. Go read the lyrics while you’re at it.

Thanks a lot

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Monday, October 7, 2019

Messora/The Door/2019 CD Review


  Messora  are  a band  from  Montreal,  Quebec,  Canada  that  plays  a  progressive  and  melodic  mixture  of  black,  doom  and  death  metal  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  self  released  2019 album  "The  Door".

  A  very  dark  and  demonic  sound  starts  off  the  album  before  adding  in  some  clean  playing  which  is  also  added  into  a  lot  of  parts  of  the  music.  Elements  of  prog  emtal  can  be  heard  in  some  of  the  heavier  riffing  while  the  vocals  also  add  in a  mixture  of  death  metal  growls  and  black  metal  screams.

  All  of  the  musical  instruments  also  have  a  very  powerful  sound  to  them  while  the  riffs  also  add  in  a  decent  amount  of  melody.  When  guitar  solos  and  leads  are  utilized  they  are  also  done  in  a  very  melodic  style  along  with  a  great  portion  of  the  tracks  being  very  long  and  epic  in  length.

  When  the  music  speeds  up  a  decent  amount  of  blast  beats  can  be  heard  along  with  one  of  the  tracks  being    an  acoustic  instrumental.  Elements  of  doom  metal  can  also  be  heard in  the  slower  sections  of  the  songs  as  well  as  one  track  also  introducing  clean  vocals  onto  the  recording  and  throughout  the  album  you  can  also  hear  a  decent  mixture  of  slow,  mid  paced  and  fast  parts,  some  songs  also  show  an  influence  of  thrash  metal  and  one  track  also  introduces  spoken  word  parts  onto  the  recording.  The  production  sounds  very  professional  for  being  a  self  released  recording  while  the  lyrics  cover  dark  themes.

  In  my  opinion  Messora  are  a  very  great  sounding  melodic  and  progressive  mixture  of  black,  doom  and death  metal  and  if  you  are  a  fan  of  those  musical  genres,  you  should  check  out  this  band.  RECOMMENDED  TRACKS  INCLUDE  "The  Door"  and  "The  Tide".  8  out  of  10.

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