Friday Full-Length: Moab, Trough
Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 28th, 2023 by JJ KoczanA band who started out underrated and remained that way for the duration, Los Angeles three-piece Moab released Trough (review here) in 2018 through Falling Dome Records as their third full-length in a seven-year run. For the band — whose moniker, also stylized all-caps: MOAB, derives from the Bush-era acronym for “mother of all bombs” used in post-9/11 Iraq War propaganda — it was already probably going to be their last record by the time it came out, following as it did the late-2016 death of drummer Erik Herzog. Recording was still going on at the time, with guitarist/vocalist Andrew Giacumakis producing and bassist Joe Fuentes contributing as well, so on levels personal, creative, professional, logistical, on and on, it was a loss deeply felt. I remember interviewing Giacumakis in 2011 around the release of Moab‘s Kemado-issued debut, Ab Ovo, and getting the impression that Moab were friends as well as bandmates. In the case of Giacumakis and Herzog, they had played together in a band called Buellton in the ’90s, maybe prior to that too, I don’t know. Honestly, the bandmate connection is enough to make that loss hurt, even if they weren’t otherwise close, which they were.
It made Trough tough to take, not the least because the record is good and what do you say about grief when somebody is still in it? If my social media feed — loaded with death announcements, thanks algorithm — is anything to go by, nobody has a clue and me neither. But looking back with the distance that five years can allow, Trough stands out as a record well deserving another look, whether that’s for the current of Sabbath-worship that underscores nearly everything they touch, or the heavy-McCartney unfolding in the intro of “Skeptic’s Lament” that opens, or the lurching stomp/melodic vocal float in “Moss Gross Where No One Goes,” the what-if-Mastodon-were-a-SoCal-desert-pop-rock-band first two minutes of “Fifty Thousand Tons” and the stark turn to the dual-channel soloing in the bridge that follows, twisting like a fleet punker Floor back to the verse from whence they came, or the space echo laced through “All Automatons,” the purposefully disorienting guitar chasing itself across right and left headphones around 2:10 and the way there seem to be two layers of hi-hat in the solo there before Herzog switches back to the cowbell like nothing ever happened and maybe it didn’t in the first place.
With the hard-hitting post-Uncle Acid fuzz and morose melody of “The Onus,” the dug-in swirl of “Into the Sea Swine” and the Motörhead homage of that riff in “Medieval Moan” even if the song doesn’t actually sound all that much like Motörhead, the synth beginning and massive plod that emerges in “Turnin’ Slow,” each low-distorted strum a declaration, a bluesy solo and acoustic guitar arriving later like the proggy flourish you didn’t know was missing, and the final blowout of “Fend for Dawn,” 
with Moab revealed as a secret thrash band all the while, Trough never dwells in one place for too long. The longest cuts are “Moss Grows Where No One Goes” (4:53) and “Turnin’ Slow” (4:48), which is fair since they’re also the slowest, but while each song seems to find its place in the flow of the 10-track/39-minute entirety, the arrangements are deceptively tight and speak to an editorial mindset in the composition — that is, the way they’re put together, it’s easy to think at some point in the process, either Fuentes, Giacumakis or Herzog questioned whether each part was doing work that needed to be done. The answer throughout the album is yes.
And even with the context of Herzog‘s passing surrounding them, the songs are fun. “Into the Sea Swine” arrives at its chorus with a palpable release of tension, which complements the jabs and crashes of “Skeptic’s Lament” and its post-Fu Manchu hook — lest we forget, Giacumakis produced that band’s Gigantoid LP in 2014; Fu bassist Brad Davis would sit in on drums for Moab in live shows supporting Trough in 2018 as well — while “Moss Grows Where No One Goes” cues its lumbering nature even in the singly-syllabic words of its title, then expands on that with unexpected grace before it’s even at the midpoint of its still-sub-five-minute run. That’s another strength here: the way Moab are able to bring a complete atmospheric impression forward, dwell there for a short time and following a not-rigid-but-unflinchingly-solid sense of structure, and move onto the next thing. Giacumakis‘ vocals — post-Ozzy in the vein of Sheavy or, if you’re on the Eastern Seaboard, maybe Freedom Hawk — are a tie that draws pieces together, but even they’re not unipolar, and less so on Trough even than the prior 2014 album, Billow (review here), which was issued through Scion A/V (remember that?). The pairing of “The Onus” and “Medieval Moan” in a linear format — on vinyl I think that’s probably where the side splits — is representative of the kind of turns Moab were able to make at this point, from the languid melody of the former to the outright shove that ensues. And then backed with the brighter uptick in “Fifty Thousand Tons,” Trough only grows richer as it moves into side B en route to that last (relative) rager in “Fend for Dawn.”
Through it all — hooks, grooves, melody, heavy tones and a band having cast an identity of their own expanding on what that can mean for them at a specific moment of realization. A third record in the ideal. Moab were outsider heavy rock in a way that freed them from adhering to all strict rules of the genre, but their celebration of them as filtered through their own sonic persona felt sincere from front to back. The chugs and mutes and stomps and crooning in “The Will is Weak,” the horns up earlier High on Fire righteousness of the cold ending to “Fend for Dawn,” and god damn if there isn’t some overarching thing about “All Automatons” — even apart from the aforementioned cowbell — just making it an absolute treasure of a track. Half a decade after its release, going on seven years since Herzog died, it’s easy to think Moab are done and one can look back on Trough and wonder what might’ve been had their circumstances been different, but that wistful mindset does nothing to diminish what they achieved in this record. I don’t often post links in Friday Full-Lengths (reviews aside), but they’ve still got copies of this one available: https://moabband.bigcartel.com/
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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A challenging and uncomfortable week. I was sick Wednesday into yesterday morning, better by the afternoon, but laid out just the same for about 24 hours in a way that I not often am. Something I ate, though I can’t pinpoint what. The Patient Mrs. speculated it was chicken we traveled to and from Maryland with this past weekend for her brother’s wedding in Baltimore County. I ate more of the same chicken last night — shit man, that stuff’s not cheap, leftovers gotta get ate; I’ll take the potential hit — but so far am fine. Maybe it was something at the wedding that gestated for a couple days. Whatever. I was asskicked. That’s the bottom line.
That was hard for The Pecan, who in a credit to her character tucked me in on the couch and let me rest a while in the morning — also not something that happens often — and that was remarkably sweet. After school, she made me a get-well card that now hangs next to my bed, but that was Wednesday and yesterday was a fucking trainwreck. How many times a day do you want to get punched by a five year old? I got hit with a fucking stick on Wednesday morning. It was a lowlight on an already downer morning.
I slept late this morning (alarm went off at four, I reset for five) and was still a little stoned when I woke up from last night’s pre-bed gummy. Not complaining. My mother came for dinner and it was kind of an emotionally heavy experience. One of her dogs is dying and she asked about when we had Dio put down and, well, that was enough to get The Patient Mrs. and I in actual tears. Not a fun story to tell. And there’s other family stuff too and it just was a lot on her and I’m glad we can be here to give somewhere to go and someone to talk to, but yeah, hard to take. Hard to see your mom in pain, and I feel like my mother and I are a lot alike in a lot of ways. Still awaiting diagnosis.
You might’ve noticed “her” above. In a moment of sensory-input-induced clarity, The Pecan informed us in no uncertain terms last night that the pronouns to use are “she/her” and while it’s going to require a bit of habit-building, I’ll be god damned if I’m not going to honor that. Even putting aside for a moment the terror of some fascist asshole beating my kid to death for somehow threatening their sense of self by, say, existing, and the suicide statistics of trans children in conflicted family situations, seeing The Pecan at that wedding this weekend in her fancypants Spring dress, I was looking at a happier, more comfortable kid than I would’ve seen had we somehow managed to force a suit, which we neither would nor likely could ever do anyhow. Life is really fucking hard and really fucking short. If this is a thing she can figure out at a young age — whatever the future might bring — and move forward from there, at least that’s one question among the infinity of discoveries about herself that she’ll make in her life that can be openly explored. And on the most absolutely basic level, I hope it makes her days easier. Not the least because in doing so it would do the same for mine.
It’s a bummer to shift gears in my brain and have a flash asking myself if I need to plug a Gimme Metal show. Obviously not, but the last one would air today if one were going to air and the app shuts down I think midnight tomorrow. That’s a loss.
The Patient Mrs. has been trying to sell me on doing a podcast together, but I don’t know. I’m sure it’ll be fun, and it’s not the kind of project on which we’d often collaborate — she and I have our own worlds, between hers in academia and me in music, that rarely cross over — but I might give it a shot. We’ll see if it happens.
Tomorrow I’m heading to Baltimore (yes, again) for Grim Reefer Fest. I’ll have that review up on Monday and then other whatnot thereafter. The whole week is full and there’s a Totimoshi video premiere in there somewhere so I’m prepared to call it a win.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, hydrate, all that fun stuff.
FRM.
