Molosser Crude Premiere “Twin Moons” In-Studio Performance Video
Later this year, Swedish heavy blues rockers Molosser Crude will release their with-an-asterisk debut album. And if you’re wondering, the reason for the asterisk there comes from the fact that the duo of drummer/vocalist Tess Varghem Risheden and guitarist Jahn issued their debut as the acoustic guitar duo Molosser, titled Appear, in 2021. A series of singles have followed, and the advent of Molosser Crude comes as the two-piece extend their affinity for live showcasing and organic performance to heavier fare, Jahn plugging in his guitar, Tess moving to drums, and the pair rocking out with what would would be energetic abandon were it actually lazy or haphazard. It is not.
One might almost call “Twin Moons,” about which you can read more below courtesy of the band, classy in its execution. For what it is, anyhow. That is to say, the foundation of the track is in its groove, and it’s a verse/chorus progression, set to an easy-to-dig tempo, pieced together and captured live, audio and video. You don’t ask too much of it, and they don’t give the song any more than it needs or wants in order to stay with you after it’s done playing. It’s got a natural kind of vibe without being overly pastoral, and if one inherently perceives a bit of challenge in a band doing something like this — a kind of universal “put up or shut up” on their part to anyone who might take up the gauntlet thrown down; a kind of ‘this is what we got, how bout you?’ — I don’t think that’s a coincidence either. But the fact is they bring it, and as a harbinger of at least some of what is to follow on their full-length as Molosser Crude, “Twin Moons” bodes well and is a banger to boot.
You can find that out for yourself in the video premiering below, and if you’re up for further digging, there’s the prior single “Pushing My Way” from the band’s Bandcamp, and regular-Molosser‘s Appear, from Spotify, both streaming below.
Choose your adventure, and please, enjoy:
Molosser Crude, “Twin Moons” video premiere
Swedish power duo Molosser Crude’s new offering Twin Moons is a bluesy stoner rock track with killer riffs, psychedelic drones, beautiful vocals and a meaner sound than anything you’ve heard this side of the gates of Hell. Beginning with a slowly slithering blues line, it heads straight into a heavy chorus and leads on through a dynamic ride that ends in sonic mayhem reminiscent of “Funhouse”-era Stooges. And though the track fits loosely into the stoner rock category, you can hear strong influences from ’60s and ’70s heavy rock as well as old delta blues in the dynamic, organic performance.
Consisting of Tess on drums and vocals and Jahn on electric guitar, Molosser Crude started as an offshoot from acoustic duo Molosser, where Tess and Jahn both play down-tuned acoustic guitars and Tess sings (debuting with the album Appear in 2021). Crude plays several songs originally made for the acoustic duo, but they are radically remade for the electric format, where a hard-riffing heavy blues/stoner rock vibe that lay dormant in the acoustic tracks gets to bloom out in full.
About Twin Moons, guitarist Jahn says: “If the word ‘seminal’ is to be used for any Molosser Crude track, this one would be it. We had been working on a live setup for our acoustic guitar duo Molosser and used this vintage-style hollow body jazz guitar to round out the sound. Just for the hell of it, I plugged it in with a considerable amount of distortion – and was greeted by the most monstrous sound I’d ever heard from a guitar! The intro and chorus riffs of Twin Moons are more or less exactly what spontaneously came from my fingers – I still have the mobile phone recording – and then we worked out the other parts together, and Tess made the vocals and drum parts. We had already been talking about going electric again, but this song was what kicked off the Crude project, and it feels pretty representative of what it’s all about.”
Twin Moons is another of Molosser Crude’s live-in-the-studio videos/recordings, which is the way this duo has chosen to present itself to the world to fully convey the energy, musical individuality, and massive sound they’re able to wring out of a ’30s-style archtop guitar, an electric drum kit and vocals, all in one take and with no overdubs.
“This one was pure hell to get finished, though”, says Jahn. “It was really meant to come out soon after Pushing My Way this fall, but we weren’t quite happy with the mix, and trying to get it right we got completely lost, ending up with muddy crap. Also, we encountered one technical problem after another with both the audio and the video, to the extent that we almost thought that the project was cursed. In the end, we dug out an old raw mix that actually was pretty nice and then spent untold hours mastering it to what you get on the video and the single. It still sounds a bit wonky, but there you go.”
Luckily, the next batch of songs by Molosser Crude were recorded with somewhat easier-to-handle sounds, and will hopefully find your eyes and ears during early spring of 2023 – providing the curse has been lifted, that is. While keeping true to their concept, the duo will veer off into both doomier and rockier domains on some of the new tracks. The recordings will be collected on an album later in 2023.
Molosser Crude:
Tess: vocals, drums
Jahn: guitar
[…] “Twin Moons,” their latest single, is so infectious. The song, which originally premiered on The Obelisk, is a wave of lush, fuzzy […]