Our Newest Metal Morpheus Episode Recap!!

Single topic post today, as another new episode of local metal radio show Metal Morpheus debuted on The Borderline on Sunday night, so what should you know about it? Following last week's heavily (and divisively) topical episode, host Josh Amendola brought back his planned series of alphabetical spotlights of the metal scenes of countries from around the world for this week, and after previously jumping ahead six countries to look at Austria for differing topical reasons, he headed back to the regular order yesterday to look at metal bands from Andorra, an extremely small (but highly developed) principality on the French/Spanish border. For context, Andorra is only barely more populated than Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario! I am surprised that Josh didn't lump Andorra in with the next A countries in line, which also have small metal scenes, but he made Andorra alone work by playing local bands for almost half of the episode's runtime.

The slightly shorter 55 minute episode begins with Josh noting that you can now hear The Borderline on FM radio locally at 107.5 FM, which is news to me! In checking around for details, they launched an FM transmitter downtown on or by January 22nd, and it is low power with an estimated distance of 5-7 km from the originating source, presumably their 527 Queen Street East home base. From my checks of the CRTC's website, there has been no public application for a new FM station at 107.5 FM, so the short range may indicate that their transmitter is the biggest they can get without needing a federal license. For the record, I did try to pick up The Borderline at 107.5 FM from about 2.5 km away, and the signal did not come in (disclosure, I didn't test it downtown), but if 5-7 km is just the furthest reported signal, the range could be comparable to the transmitters used at drive-in theaters. Your mileage may vary!

In any event, you can hear The Borderline 24/7 online at this link, but FM availability is great for anyone in range, and who knows what this could lead to! Back to the Metal Morpheus episode proper, Josh next gives some statistics about Andorra & its native music, before moving into the country's very small roster of prominent metal bands, so much so that the first FOUR songs come from the same band, namely melodic death metal sextet Persefone, including their songs "In Lak'ech" (3:00), "Underworld: The Fallen & The Butterfly - Act I: Clash of the Titans" (10:35), "Mind As Universe" (17:00), and "The Demise of Oblivion" (21:50). Josh finishes the Andorran half of the episode with a song from ambient black metal solo project De Veneficas Inferi, namely "Daemonic I, Stone Witches" (30:05). The final 21 minutes of this episode belong to local metal acts, so who got played in the back half?

In order, Josh plays defunct hardcore punk band The Harsh Heads' song "Carolly" (35:15) from their kinda-released album "First Hated Then Forgotten", three songs from mysterious mid-2000s extreme metal solo project Recognition (their self-titled track [39:05], "Flying Ashes" [43:00], and "First" [45:05]), late 1990s hardcore punk band Proposition 86's song "Another Lost Cause" from their EP (47:15), and defunct Sault Michigan groove metal band Lower S.E.S.' song "Bold" (51:00) from their EP. Before playing the final song, Josh did hint that he wants to do more themed episodes apart from the alphabetical country series once he finishes with the As, and for reference, 6 countries that start with A come after Andorra (obviously excluding the already-covered Austria), with Angola next in line if Josh stays in alphabetical order. Solid episode overall that takes Metal Morpheus back to its 2021 form with quality music all around!

Some of Josh's pronunciation of Catalan terms wasn't great (points for trying, of course), and for variety's sake, maybe he should have stretched out to include more than two Andorran bands, but Persefone are a strong and heavy group in their own right, and the locals on offer were fun to hear again! Hear this and other back episodes of Metal Morpheus at the above links, and tune in for the next episode (Angola or otherwise) on Sunday night at 9:00 PM and/or on-demand after the fact! That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!