Okay, so the 12-minute single doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about Moan‘s self-titled debut and its improv-based heavy rock construction, but the fact that of the four songs, they picked “Nothing in Nature” in the first place tells you a lot. The looseness underpinning the four-track long-player reminds me a lot of older school stoner rock, and I can’t help accordingly but to wonder if over the course of the next year we’ll see more bands coming out like this, who maybe got their start either in the pandemic or adjacent to do it who’ve sort of gone to ground stylistically while bringing new creativity to established styles. In the world of sports, they follow ‘storylines’ for seasons. That’s one I’ve got my eye on, along with the rise of trad metal (similarly motivated in part, I think) and the ever-amorphous shifts in psychedelic trends between space this and acid that.

Moan are riffier and groovier, more about tone and progression than atmosphere, but they don’t lack that either, and “Nothing in Nature” most definitely proves that. The album is out Nov. 25 (I’ll be away that week or I’d have already asked to stream it), and you’ll find the release info and the clip for the extended lead single below. All comes courtesy of the PR wire:

MOAN are four dudes from Groningen, Netherlands. Guitarist Marcel and Bassist André have been making music together since forever. Two people in a room, hardly any lights and loads of weed. Sometimes other musicians came in, jammed, and went, not to return. Their music existed purely by means of making it. They hardly performed. Listeners at the door of that room, became long-time fans.

Ear-splitting hammer-like, the darkest of soundscapes. Singers and drummers came and went. “You can come in and join, but we are MOAN, deal with it”. How does one deal with MOAN? By becoming MOAN, not by being overambitious and wanting to change stuff. And stand firm because their black humour is all over the place.

In comes Drummer Reinee. A mammoth and that’s exactly what MOAN’s sound is like: a mammoth stompin’ about. Enter vocalist, Jurgen. He’s been listening at that door for ages, longing to become their singer. Once, he got a tape, tried to add his vocals, and failed miserably, nothing came up! Back to the door, listen, listen and listen again. How to deal with MOAN? Again, by becoming MOAN. So fuck the tape, he went in. MOAN improvised stuff that sounded like compositions. Almost all the material on their first album came to form during that first improvisation. MOAN is a four piece now…….

“We are MOAN. Our sound is massive, we feel it pressing on our chests. It is not doom, far from it. Our sound is sorrowful, not meant to kick your teeth in, but to drench your heart in melancholy and carry you. And yes, we like machinery, loud stomping machinery. We are mud, warm and damp. We are MOAN, our noise is stoner-like, the vocals tend to be melodic, our bass is a sledgehammer, and our drummer is a beast. MOAN is like black tourmaline and selenite: two stones that purify and cleanse…” –
MOAN

Track Listing:
1. Burning Man
2. Nothing in Nature
3. Learn to Bleed
4. Desert Island Drugs

Line Up:
Guitar – Marcel
Bass – André
Drums – Reinee
Vocals – Jurgen

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Moan, “Nothing in Nature” official video