Was it based on personal experience or simply passive observation?

What happened in the recording studio or on stage to make one song sound different from the rest?

These are just some of the question bands and musicians attempt to answer in Line 'em Up - the newest page of The Power Of Metal.Dk.

This is where your favourite bands comment on their albums, track by track, because as someone once said, “Ideas are the building blocks of ideas”.

Enjoy!

Here’s a chance for you to tell our readers about your new album “Violence Fraud Treachery”.

But could you please start off by introducing the readers to Mordax?

Jeff: Mordax is a 5-piece death/thrash metal band from Copenhagen. We’ve existed about 2 years and released our first demo-EP “Slaughter” in Autumn 2010. Soon after the demo-release we decided to write a full-length record, which took place in Spring 2011, and we’re proud to finally release the debut album “Violence Fraud Treachery” February 24^th.

Can you describe the style Mordax plays and the influences Mordax is inspired by?

Jeff: All of us grew up in a small town called Ribe, where several thrash metal bands emerged from in the 90s (Sacrificial, Invocator, Autumn Leaves and many more). Those bands had a great impact on us through our youth, and Asmus Thomsen( bassplayer in Sacrificial) was handling the mix and master of “Slaughter”. As for our inspirations nowadays, we listen to a lot of different music each one of us, but I guess all of us share a predilection for classic bay-area thrash.

The band is together for about a year and a half now, have the members been playing in other bands before?

Jeff: Ejnar (drums) and Ole (guitar), who created Mordax years ago have played in different bands together since they wore their diapers – mostly pop/rock bands, but finally they’ve now fallen in love with metal! Mads (guitar), Asbjørn (vocals) and me (bass) have been playing together for some years in the melodic death metal band Descensus. 

What do you think about today’s thrash scene, which new bands do you like and which old ones?

Mads: Old school metal is getting a revival these days, both when it comes to thrash metal, heavy metal and death metal, and some of the newer bands are better than others. If you aren’t able to come up with something better than standard death or metalcore then I think it’s great to celebrate the genre and bands that created extreme metal. Two of the most interesting new acts that come to mind are Skeletonwitch and our label buddies in Essence from Denmark. Skeletonwitch and Essence have a different take on thrash metal, but both with roots in the classical 80’es thrash metal.

I could make a long list of great and important old bands. The obvious ones, are Metallica and Slayer, even though you hardly would call Metallica a thrash metal band nowadays. But the classic stuff is still among my favourite thrash metal albums.  Also some of the bands from the German wave of thrash metal, like Kreator and Sodom, still keep the flag high. I also have to mention Artillery. They have been playing thrash metal for about 30 years and they’re still getting better and better for each record. The Danish thrash metal act Sacrificial from Ribe is one of the main reasons (with Autumn Leaves) why I wanted to play (thrash) metal. They made 3 stunning albums and were an extraordinary nice live band.

Why should a thrash fan check your new album out?

Mads: You will find some of the things that made thrash metal popular in the 80’es. Fast and sharp riffing with pounding drums, whining and catchy leads and aggressive attitude. Mordax also adds some groove to some of the songs. We try to make each song memorable with some catchy riffs or groove. You will find very different songs on the album, but at the same time it all sounds like Mordax. We have fast songs like “Trademark Strangulation”, “Acts Of Aggression” and “Walk The Earth”. On The other hand we have a slow and evil track like “Monarch Of All” with Mr. Dan Swanö on guest vocals. “Contrapasso” is an instrumental track with a lot of great melodies and leads from Jeff and Ole. So you will find lot of diversity on the album.  

Are there plans for a European tour?

Mads: We will try to book European dates in October 2012. But we can't say anything for sure right now. You just have to keep an eye on Facebook.com/mordaxmetal or mordax.net. 

And now onto ‘Violence Fraud Treachery… track-by-track, what inspired you, what topics are you dealing with, what do you want to express with this song etc.

Trademark: Strangulation

Asbjørn: This is a serialkiller's simpel story told in firstperson perspective. This is about his trademark methods, his boiling wrath and his urge to kill by strangulation. I think I was inspired by some article or broadcast about seriealkillers and their beastial ways of murdering their victims. I thought about this face to face stranglers violent bloodpath and started writing my fictious story over this topic. We've tried to make the verse with A-B-C-B rhymes for the catchy feel of it and to make the lyrics aggressive and fast to match the song structure.

 Devoured by Life

Asbjørn: I believe that this was the first Mordax track we wrote lyrics for - maybe the second. The lyrics were concieved under heavy beer consumption by Ole and I back in our hometown Ribe. We searched the bookshelves for inspiration and found Mary Shellys Frankenstein. Inspired by the monstrous creation of artificial life, we started writing, mixing ideas and making the lines fit the track already recorded.

 Acts of Aggression

Ole: The lyrics of this song is about how lies are central to the politics of war. It's an anti-war song, obviously. When countries go to war, those in power almost always need to convince the public of the necessity and even desirability of war, and this more often than not entails lying to the public, more or less bluntly. This is part of why the politics of war are bound to be rotten. It'll always be about “justifying filthy deeds”.

 Monarch of All

Asbjørn: This is a slow and very heavy track with a doom metal inspired intro and verse. The song is building up both mass and tempo with an uptempo middlepart graced with Dan Swanø's massive vocal performance. The lyrics evolve around individualism in a chaotic world view and unchaining the slaves of the conform.

Silhouette of God

Asbjørn:  This one is inspired by words and rituals from the bible and the church of christianity and the the way of forgiving selfish acts in the name of christ. I've tried to write this one with a touch of sarcasm towards the the rituals of the church: bow before your icons and you are blessed by christ.
In the chorus I depict god with a smile of a serpent to create a picture of the silhouette the way I see it. Check it out and read the lyrics.

Necrotic Hordes

Asbjørn: inspired by the atmosphere of oldschool horrorfilms and the pandemic spread of the walking dead known from countless zombiefilms, this is about the rise of the dead and their marching hordes, blessing all with death.

No Redeemer

Ole: Asbjørn and I wrote the lyrics for this one as kind of a mix between pure darkness, death and destruction on the one hand, and on the other the rejection of the idea that human beings are born sinners and must be redeemed in order to achieve salvation.

 Walk the Earth

Asbjørn: Mads probably wrote every riff for this one. We were presented with the main riff of this song and we immediatly liked the catchyness of this thrash metal shredding barrage. We made a prerecording of this track back in late 2010 or early 2011, i can't really remember, but originally we had another text for this song. We recorded everything including the vocals and we were pretty happy about it except the lyrics. It just didn't fit the style of the music we wanted to create. We wrote the lyrics for this thrash anthem all together trying to create an sinister portrait of an apocalyptic world and the last breath of humanity. We made the rhymes of the vocal lines hammering along the fast riffing with some easy catchphrases in the chorus.

 Treachery

Ole: Asbjørn penned the lyrics for this one. The way I understand the lyrics, it's really about not being a slave to something or someone you don't wish to be a slave to.

Thank you very much for your time and input.

Reinier de Vries, March 2012