Sadistik Forest Are Here to Bring You Decades of Torment Then Death
FINNISH HIM!
There’s some music that immediately conjures up an image in your mind as soon as the first note plays. Its usually an involuntary response, a kind of mental reflex brought on by a flood of emotion that only music can provide. It could be a song that reminds of your first kiss, a particularly wonderful summer, or massive headwound you received from a crowdsurfing accident. This surge of emotion, this joyful reminiscence, is how I feel listening to Sadistik Forest. They don’t take me to another time personally or remind me of how I felt in a particular moment, exactly, but they bring to mind something of which I am fond and that my mind wanders to often: Mortal Kombat.
Yes, Mortal Kombat. I posit that the Finnish foursome’s latest LP, Morbid Majesties, is the perfect companion to an afternoon filled with eye gouging, spine snapping, and general evisceration and dismemberment. I mean, just look at this album art:
Now that’s some MK concept art if I’ve ever seen it. You can probably guess that it isn’t just the artwork that evokes over the top fatalities and grotesqueries (this is a band on a site largely focused on music, after all), but the music is more that just disgusting filth, and we have the track premiere to prove it.
The track, “Decades of Torment Then Death,” opens in stop/start fashion but doesn’t take long to launch into full scale madness. Guitars swirl and practically bounce all over the place, the thunderous drum work of Vesa Mutka the only semblance of order. The chaos is short lived as everything gels together and the song is elevated to the next level with a real paint peeler of a riff. There’s an undeniable sense of melody hidden underneath the colossal riffs and rhythm section of “Decades of Torment then Death,” a catchiness within that makes the whole thing both headbangable and instantly hummable. The borderline decipherable, higher pitched wails of bassist/vocalist Markus Makkonen (ex Hooded Menace) sprinkled throughout just makes the track that much more of an earworm. Go ahead and fire up your favorite Mortal Kombat, smash that mf’in play button and tell me that there’s a better band to brutalize to (and forget this ever happened).
Morbid Majesties drops on March 25th via Transcending Obscurity Records. You can order it here and give the band a like on Facebook here.
