High Roller Records, slipcase CD, new album 2025, Morax from Bergen in Norway is the brainchild of Remi A. Nygård, who is handling all the instruments himself and writes all the songs. He has been playing in various bands and projects for quite some time, the most important being the trash metal band Inculter, which has been active for more than ten years now. Morax's mini-album »Rites And Curses« was issued on High Roller Records in October 2023. It is now being followed by the first full-length album named »The Amulet«. "At first the record seemed to be mostly spread within the underground scene in Norway and usually amongst people I already knew," describes Remi how the debut »Rites And Curses« was received. "It also had some reviews in different magazines around the world, where some reviewers really liked it. I think that started spreading it more outside of Norway. A few months later, around new year's eve, it ended up on some "best of the year" lists, which came as a very pleasant surprise and boosted the album quite a bit." Although Remi handles all the instruments on his own once again on »The Amulet«, he did got together a band to perform a few live dates: "I started gathering members at the start of 2024 with the intent of doing some live shows. After finding the right members, we ended up doing our first gig in June with Sabbat and Deathhammer, which was a perfect bill for a debut gig! The first show happened in Oslo, and a few weeks later we were doing another gig with Sepulcher in Bergen, which was also killer." Usually I come up with some riffs, melodies or sections while jamming in my living room on my acoustic guitar," is how the multi-instrumentalist approaches the songwriting for Morax. "If I feel that the ideas are good enough, I try to make a whole song revolving those ideas. I often struggle with finishing the whole compositions, so they are often completed while I record the drums. That's when I really get the feeling if the song structure will work or not. Sometimes I may even just add some drum patterns which I haven't made a riff for yet, just because I feel that it is needed in the song." With Remi originally coming out of the extreme metal scene, his influences for Morax are quite different: "I like to bring in everything from 70s rock to thrash metal. Mercyful Fate/King Diamond, early Judas Priest and Black Sabbath (mostly Dio-era) have been the main inspirations for »The Amulet«, and the rest is spices that I add to taste." He continues: "I think the most common comparisons for Morax were probably Mercyful Fate and In Solitude. I don't know if that's because I mentioned it in some of the interviews for the previous release, or if that is exactly what it sounds like. But for sure, those are big inspirations for me!" Remi does see »The Amulet« as a natural follow-up to »Rites And Curses«, with it "being a heavy metal album that explores many different corners of heavy metal, always with a kind of evil or dark edge. The album was recorded in the same way as previously: drums and vocals recorded in the rehearsal space, while guitars and bass are done in my bedroom at home. It was also produced and mixed by yours truly. " Regarding specific songs on »The Amulet«, Remi would like to single out "The Descent", which is the album closer: "This song is one of the longer, weirder tracks of the album, but still pretty much straight to the point. Although it may not sound like it, this song was the first song I wrote for the album, right after I finished »Rites And Curses«. I am really happy with the way it turned out in the end, and I wouldn't want it to be overlooked just because it's last on the album. That sadly seems to happen way to often these days..." MATTHIAS MADER