Full Album Premiere, Track-by-Track & Review: The Moth, Frost
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on September 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Hamburg, Germany’s The Moth exist in a world without genre, and their fourth album, Frost — also their first release for the likemided Exile on Mainstream — argues that maybe you should to. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash and drummer Christian “Curry” Korr debuted a decade ago with 2013’s They Fall, answered back in 2015 with And Then Rise (review here), and made a declarative statement of persona on 2017’s Hysteria (review here), each record marked by incremental growth in an increasingly distinct stylistic context. Frost may arrive six years after the third long-player and through a new label, but as The Moth step forward again with this 10-song/44-minute collection, the many strengths of their approach are on ready display, whether it’s the intensity of chug in “Me, Myself and Enemy,” the sad hookiness of “Hundreds” or the thud and crush that caps with “Silent.”
One is tempted, perpetually, to think of The Moth as ‘experimental,’ but the truth is more complex. They’re not banging on steel girders or inventing instruments. They’re not looping effects until the cosmos seems to melt. Guitar, bass, drums, and the shared vocals of Ash and Mohrdiek are all they need to make Frost unpredictable front to back. They’re like the best present that noise rock never knew it got. Expansive and rolling in the Melvinsian tradition before the blowout on the title-track, loosely playing toward, well, Cathedral on “Cathedral” (could also say Type O Negative there), and set forth with punk-born fervor in the salvo “My, Myself and Enemy,” “Birmingham,” “Battlefield” and “Bruised” just before, the two instances of alliteration likely coincidental, but an example just the same of the identity and character in their material. A band not only saying they’re doing their own thing, but actually living up to that standard. And fostering an emotional expression as well.
“Bruised” seems especially well placed since, by the time one gets there it’s a potentially apt descriptor. Of the first four songs, only “Birmingham” is over three minutes long, and so where a psychedelic band might try to draw the audience in with some hypnotic, repetitive meditation, The Moth head out at a relative sprint and put their most driving material up front. That’s not a universal, blanket truth, by the way — because one must remember, The Moth are multifaceted, and a given track might do more than one thing — but applicable as a generalization. Certainly the penultimate “Dust,” which was also the lead single from Frost, has a suitably brash shove in addition to one of the record’s most satisfying nods, and “In the City” just before is tense enough to make your stomach hurt if you let it, with its weirdo effects in the second half lead over the double-time hi-hat and jet-engine rhythm layers of guitar and bass. But there is a definite transition as “Cathedral” picks up from “Bruised,” and “Hundreds” leans into its grunge-ish chorus melody with Ash and Mohrdiek together on vocals to end side A with a due sense of landing.
And it’s not the last one as The Moth move into side B and the last four, mostly longer, songs on the album. The rumble at the start of “Frost” boasts aww-yuck-face tone in only the most righteous fashion, and the sludgy crash and lumber that ensues is a redirect from “Hundreds,” which also ends thudding but in kind of a ’80s-thrash-tape manner. The title-track is the longest song at 6:52, and grows more consuming as it works toward its eventual fade, with Mohrdiek and Ash swapping back and forth in the vocal arrangement when not both shouting. With “In the City” after, they assure that the strides and vibe established on side A aren’t lost — that energy that comes through as “Me, Myself and Enemy” opens, I mean — and while one would hardly call the tremolo picking of “Dust” soothing, there is an overarching flow as it gives over to the avant raw riffing and toms of “Silent,” which brings back that forward-in-the-mix guitar-as-keyboard (unless it’s just a keyboard) sound from “In the City” as if continuing a theme across the final three tracks, pulling them together as a band might when considering the whole-LP impression of a work as well as the songs that make it.
Maybe The Moth sit and planned all this out before they hit the studio, or maybe the whole thing is magic. It matters only academically. What’s more relevant in terms of the listening experience is that Frost was tracked live, in a day. It is a band-showed-up-and-played record, and part of its sonic appeal comes from that. I used the word ‘raw’ above to describe the tones and I’ll stand by it, but it’s worth highlighting that while much of Frost can indeed be barebones from a production standpoint, the material neither sounds opaque nor difficult to engage. Even as they cap “Silent,” they do so on a march and a drone rather than some grandiose ending that would be out of place. If that’s a conscious choice on their part or just what felt right, the end result is the same. The Moth continue their progressive trajectory in these songs and meet the span of years it’s been since their last offering with head-on force of craft and delivery.
The Moth – Track-by-Track Through Frost:
ME, MYSELF & ENEMY
Sometimes the enemy can be yourself. That holds true for the emotional and psychological side as well as the physical side when something in your body turns against you and threatens your health and life.
BIRMINGHAM
The song is about people who want to change themselves or something in their lives and, despite being very motivated, have to realize how difficult it sometimes is to stop feeding the demons within them.
BATTLEFIELD
This is about being let down and emotionally injured by a person that you felt closest to. And about not being able to show or talk about the injury. So you smile though inside you are full of grief and not able to share it with anyone (yet). This denying of your feelings is (maybe literally) like killing parts of yourself over and over again.
BRUISED
This is about preparing for a fight and not being afraid of it, though the enemy may be strong. Because some fights are just necessary. Catching a few hits or getting bruised doesn’t scare you, because you know that you’ll get through this and though you may be smaller, you’re stronger.
CATHEDRAL
Some periods in life we feel like the present and the future are especially uncertain. It’s like walking through a fog and we just have to have faith in ourself, each other and that the good in humanity will win over the bad. In those times we should turn towards the other or the others, show that we feel the same, take each other’s hands (sometimes metaphorically speaking) and get through this together.
HUNDREDS
This is about past relationships and breakups. If they have truely loved, ex-partners may somehow stay connected on some other level even though they were not meant to be together in this life.
FROST
Sometimes what you most wish for and have fought for so long, just doesn’t happen or something puts a definite end to that vision you had: it will never become reality. So where is that hope that you fostered for so long, so suddenly supposed to go? Having to give up hope on something that was extremely important to you is a huge loss. So going through the grief that this brings feels like walking through a sea of ice, through the frost. And if nobody is sharing the grief with you, you have to confront this pain and emptiness on your own. Until the end of the frost.
IN THE CITY
It’s about people that are alive and have a lust for life and are not afraid to show it. They have dressed up, look sharp and walk the streets at night to go to a concert or a party and just enjoy themselves. They are being watched by others, half fascinated, half uncomprehending. The others are more ordinary people, who like to keep it „normal“, people with dead eyes. In this particular case we were thinking about four women from the Birmingham area who have supported us since we first came to the UK and definitely made the nights more colourful: Emma, Emily, Jess and Vic. Emma and Emily are also singing alongside Cécile on the chorus of this track!
DUST
Two years ago I (Cécile) had breast cancer. During that time I often listened to Anita Moorjani who once had cancer herself and a near death experience. She is just so encouraging. She says cancer patients should not accept the word „remission“ (fear-based) but should reinterpret this word as a shortform for „remember your mission“ (love-based). Our purpose is, she says, to remember what we came here for, what our mission is. And our first mission is, to truly be ourselves.
SILENT
The song is about the certainty or hope that someone is there for you and looks after you in tough times and will give you a hand.
German doom/sludge metal trio THE MOTH prepares to release their monstrous fourth album, Frost, through Exile On Mainstream this Friday.
Frost will be released on September 22nd digitally and on 140-gram pure virgin Black Vinyl including a bundled CD. Find physical preorders at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE: https://shop.mainstreamrecords.de/product/eom107
and digital at Bandcamp HERE: https://the-moth.bandcamp.com/
THE MOTH takes their approach to new heights with their fourth album, Frost. Catchy lines get stuck in the listener’s heart and mind like a dislodged meat hook, explaining why the band calls their style doom-sludge pop – “Kim Wilde-meets-Bolt Thrower” – or like a review for the 2017 album Hysteria put it: “pop music played with a bulldozer.” Lyrically, however, THE MOTH shows a new openness and vulnerability under the shell of raw power that the songs initially present. Experiencing and living through strokes of fate runs through the record as a recurring theme – all under a rough shell of distinctive and deliberately raw sound. Bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash, guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, and drummer Curry Korr perform the dichotomy with a high recognition value. Boring riff hum and mantric stoner-esque repetition are not their thing.
Frost was recorded live in only 24 hours, the album recorded and mixed by José Lorenzo at Bombrec Recording, and then mastered by Timo Höcke at Die Wellenschmiede, and completed with artwork by Sarah Breen and layout by Cécile Ash. Emma Billingham and Emily Yardley provide additional vocals on “In The City.”
Frost will be released on September 22nd digitally and on 140-gram pure virgin Black Vinyl including a bundled CD. Find physical preorders at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE and digital at Bandcamp HERE.
THE MOTH has confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.
THE MOTH Record Release Shows:
9/22/2023 Störtebecker – Hamburg, DE w/ Treedeon
10/03/2023 Alte Meierei – Kiel, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/04/2023 Fundbureau – Hamburg, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/05/2023 MTC – Cologne, DE w/ Thronehammer
10/06/2023 Immerhin – Wuerzburg, DE
10/07/2023 Keep It Low Festival – Munich, DE
11/17/2023 Thav – Hildesheim, DE w/ with Shakhtyor
11/18/2023 Die Trompete – Bochum, DE w/ Treedeon
THE MOTH:
Cécile Ash – bass, vocals
Freden Mohrdiek – guitar, vocals
Curry Korr – drums
