M.O.R.A. – Self-Titled

Always excited to hear new hardcore bands from Finland. Here we have dark and grey artwork showing how a giant snake is suffocating a mouse. And that’s a good metaphor of what you’ll find on this record, two angry female vocals spitting venom over suffocating doublebass-pedal breakdowns.

Both vocals are outstanding and bring a lot of diversity to the music. The lyrics are all in Finnish language but they sent me a sheet with English translations (how cool!), which unfortunately was a big turn off, because I’d have assumed that the lyrics are still as good as the sound, but reading the translations I’d say that I’m not impressed at all. Everything is ok with the contents (nothing politically sketchy!) but they are just singing about the same old boring hXc stuff—stabbing in the back, staying true to the hardcore life, etc.

As influences on the music of M.O.R.A. I could mention bands like Full Blown Chaos, Sworn Enemy, Death Threat or Raised Fist, but the two female vocals who perfectly fit into the music and distribute their vocal duties equally well makes this record really good. The total length of the record is around 16 minutes and it totally suits my needs for aggressive hardcore music, hence the boring lyrics.

The band actually features members of Black Betsy, a familiar band to me from before. However, from what I’ve heard here, M.O.R.A. is definitely the better band comparing to Black Betsy.