Interview by Kris Peters
Melbourne metal outfit Munt could easily lay claim to being one of the most brutal acts this country has produced. Their music is frenetic, dangerous, aggressive and strangely beautiful - to the point that despite the visceral carnage going on around you, you can't help but be swept up in the sonic musical landscape as it materialises and then disintegrates right before your ears.
They are a formidable live machine - as anyone who has been in the same room as them with a stage anywhere near the vicinity can attest - but seldom does a band capture the feel and essence of the live arena as meticulously as these guys.
As if to prove the point, Munt today drop their third EP Pain Ouroboros, five carefully crafted slabs of musical mayhem that obliterate the lines of traditional metal, in the process morphing into something much more sinister.
HEAVY caught up with frontman Mothlord earlier this week to talk about the EP, starting with the last single released Apostate Sermon.
"An apostate, by the dictionary definition, is someone who defies or rejects religion in a political way of thinking," he measured. "And obviously a sermon is... I guess it's like a paradox. A sermon would be something you think of in a religious context , but instead it's a sermon for people who've shed that skin so to speak. The opening line is "my brethren I sing a song of joyful wrath", so it's kind of a call to arms and a message for like minded people."
Apostate Sermon follows on from the first single The Vengeful March, so we press Mothlord on if those two tracks are a good sonic representation of the EP as a whole.
"Oh, yeah," he replied without thought. "I think we very intentionally chose those two songs to do music videos for. Like I said, Apostate's a bit more of the blackened epic sound, whereas The Vengeful March is a little bit more in the class of hard hitting, grindy sound of things. It's a very good representation of what we're about at the moment."
In the full interview. Mothlord goes through each track individually and explains what they were going for with that particular song and what it's about, the title Pain Ouroborus and what it means, their sound and where it comes from, upcoming shows and more.